Beauty in Death

It is January  2016 and I have said "Good Riddance" to 2015!

On New Year's Day, 2015, my mother in law was hospitalized, where she remained for the next twelve days. Her medications were altered and adjusted over the next few months and she did fairly well, until she was found unresponsive one day in April.  

She was admitted to ICU for several days and subsequently transferred to another hospital for about a month.  She was home in time for Mother's Day.

She continued seeing her many doctors and lived life simply with her husband, who was also her care giver.

In late June she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  This news was hard to digest for the entire family.  She opted out of chemotherapy and was placed on Hospice care July 14, 2015. 

A port was placed in her abdomen to drain the excess fluid from her body produced by the cancer.  We drained fluid every other day until October 27, 2015.

My mother-in-law was given 4 months of life to live after her cancer diagnosis.  Miraculously, she was without pain and had more mental clarity than any time I had seen during my 24 years in her family.

The beautiful part of this story, the end of her life here on earth, is she is no longer tormented in her mind and no longer limited by a body filled with disease.  She has a new body with a clear mind and eternal life with King Jesus. 

I will admit it is very hard to see any beauty in death when faced with the shock and reality that your loved one is gone.

But somehow, somewhere in this very dark place, in this sea of dispair, love bubbles up in the form of family and friends who drop everything, who pause their lives for a moment--for you.

It begins with a neighbor, then two or three more who show up with food; a knock at the door.  A delivery of fresh flowers from a long lost friend, who can't be there in person, but sends a prayer with Amen.

It's the emails, the texts, the flowers the food, the phone calls, the cards, the friends who show up that carry you through.

Without our family and friends this would have been much harder.  Without Jesus, it would have been unbearable.