Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Home (01/09/06)
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TITLE: The Journey Home | Previous Challenge Entry
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01/14/06 -
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The room was filled with rows of cushioned seats, tables with magazines, complimentary coffee. Hospital staff had done everything they could think of to make it a comfortable room, but no one can be comfortable waiting while a family member or friend is undergoing surgery. We made ourselves as comfortable as possible for a long wait.
The surgeon told us the surgery would take at least three hours. Mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer a few weeks earlier. Now the doctor was removing the tumor along with nearly two-thirds of her stomach. At least that is what we were told forty-five or fifty minutes earlier. It was too soon for a nurse to be calling for the family of Barbara Parks? There must be some mistake! But there wasn’t.
The surgeon was visibly shaken. “I couldn’t do anything. The cancer has already spread to her vital organs.”
I heard myself asking how long and the doctor’s answer.
“Anytime I give you will be wrong - rather I tell you six weeks or two months.”
It was nine months later when Mama breathed her last breath and finished her journey home. The important thing was not how she died but how she prepared for the departure.
Those last months transformed a quiet, shy woman into a mouthpiece for the Lord, and she had a captive audience. Each nurse that came into the room to care for Barbara Parks heard about Jesus. Visitor who came to cheer her up were surprised to find her full of joy and the anticipation of Heaven.
There were hard times. The cancer caused extreme pain. We watched Mama shrink to a bag of bones. The morphine took most of her sight. Yet, her faith blossomed more each passing week and month. Her Heavenly Father called, and she was going home.
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