No Guarantee

I continue to miss my mom more and more every day.  Even during the moments when I'm the most preoccupied, she still remains on my mind and in the most tender place of my heart.  Tears stay at the surface of my eyes and are ready to fall at any given moment.  As much as I am so grateful to have the assurance she is with Jesus, I still just wish she was still here.

I was with some friends yesterday, and we were having a conversation about the current health of one friend's mother-in-law.  She's facing a chronic illness.  One that is greatly going to effect her quality of life.  There currently is no cure for this disease, and it will most likely be the thing that will ultimately take her life.  As I was listening to her and hearing the heartache in her voice, my thoughts went quickly to my mom and tears began to well up in my eyes.  She asked if hearing what she had to say was to hard for me.  Actually, it puts things into perspective for me.

The shock of my mom's sudden death has been horrible.  It's so hard to comprehend how she could be here one moment and gone the next without any warning to us.  I still hear her say over and over, "I'll talk to you tomorrow".  However, it would have been much harder to have watched her suffer a horrible, long term illness.  I still have a hard time with knowing my mom died alone though.  It's hard to think about not being with her when she drew her last breath.  I find myself often wondering if she realized she was dying.  As I was expressing this to Connie yesterday, Mary immediately reminded me of what my friend John said to me.

"I can't help but think that if your mom knew she were about to die, that God had taken care to make sure that she was experiencing no fear."

I need to try and make every effort to remember that.  I know he's 100% correct.  I am sure of it because the Lord says He will never leave us.  Never.  Knowing that is the absolute truth, I also need to remember that she actually didn't die alone.  He was with her every moment, and He gave her more comfort than I or anyone else ever could have.

We are never guaranteed tomorrow.  We aren't even promised our next breath.  Never miss an opportunity to say I love you.  Make sure that those you love know you love them right back.  Always express how much someone means to you.  I've also struggled with knowing if my mom truly knew how much I loved her.  Everyone says she absolutely did.  I hope so.  I try to remember what Darryl told me.

"Even is she didn't, she does now"

I just wish I had said it.  I wish those had been the last words I said to her.  I've always been able to hold on the gift that the last words I ever said to my Nannie were "I love you", and the last words she said to me were "I love you too".

I wish it had been the same with my mom.