Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Sad (07/26/07)
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TITLE: Remembering | Previous Challenge Entry
By Cindy Solfest-Wallis
08/01/07 -
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“Hi!”, I yelled back.
“Who are you talking to?”, my dad said, coming up behind me. It was late on a cold January Friday night, and I had traveled hours after work to the farmhouse where I grew up. I had just greeted my dad at the door, and gone to plop my luggage on the stairs.
“Oh, I thought it was mom….” I said, my voice trailing off, as I realized once again that she had passed away just a few short weeks ago. The light was on up in my old bedroom, and I could have sworn I heard her voice, expecting her to be making up the bed for my arrival.
She died right before Christmas. She had a mitral valve replacement for the second time in eleven years. At first, it seemed successful once again, but there was a clot, and she just faded away, her organs slowly shutting down, her blood pressure slowly dropping to nothing. Because her liver and kidneys had quit functioning, she was swollen like a whale. Shortly after death, she began to bruise, her body turning purple, and we decided not to have her casket open at the funeral visitation. When my dad and siblings and I viewed her for the last time, I didn’t just cry, I wailed. It drove my family from the building, listening to me wail from the sidewalk, until my husband came in, gently pulling me away from her casket.
From then on, Christmas was never the same for me. It brought such a great, deep sadness to the depths of my soul. Any time I visit my dad on the farm, I am still overcome with that same grief, and it’s been almost nineteen years since she passed.
After twenty-five years, my parent’s refrigerator gave out. It was the last one my mother had chosen, and after all these years, my dad had kept the refrigerator magnets boasting “Betty’s Kitchen” in place. I thought about those magnets when he called to tell me he had gotten a new fridge, wondering if he would finally throw them out. But, when I visited last week for his birthday, the new fridge was in place, and “Betty’s Kitchen” was still prominently displayed.
It’s funny how you never forget the people you love the most.
I don’t think it’s true that “time heals all wounds” as we hear. I’m a Christian, and always have been. I know that my mother is in heaven, a far better place than we. And, with that knowledge, naturally the grief isn’t unbearable.
A few years ago, my husband suffered a massive heart attack, the specialist and staff called it a “widow maker” because of its severity. During this time, he had a Near Death Experience, witnessing heaven and talking with God. He has come out of that experience with many things to tell, but the key is that heaven is right here. Our loved ones are so close, and they’re waiting for us to join them. They’re saying “It’s okay, it will be all right”, we just simply have to believe. Talking with him about his NDE over these past two years has solidified our spirituality, and we know for certain that death is a transition. As my husband says, “There’s nothing greater than death!”
While this was such a traumatic experience, we are blessed to have had this experience.
We know this undeniable truth, that heaven is waiting for those who believe in Jesus!
A few days ago, my husband and I were sorting through papers, when we came across an old answering machine that we had years ago. We had discarded of it in the box it came in, when I remembered that I had that machine when my mom died. I had kept it all these years, because I had never erased the tape with the last few messages she had left me before her death. My husband dug it out of the garbage bag, and we quickly plugged it in. My heart raced as we flipped to side one and began playing the old messages. I thought I would certainly burst into hysteria hearing her voice, but when the messages played, I didn’t cry. I smiled. I remembered. And, I wasn’t sad anymore.
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