House on the Rock

I will never forget that morning of September 25, and the way a heaviness seemed to settle over our world like a dark cloud. I couldn’t explain the feeling, but once again, I couldn’t shake a sense of doom. Mom had made it through ten rounds of radiation. She had worked her way back up to those crazy-fast four mile walks. She lost her hair but maintained her gorgeous glow — a faith glow, as some people called it. All things considered, it seemed like we were going to make it through this cancer diagnosis. At least for a while! Surely long enough to make it to Cam’s wedding, just 13 days away.

I texted with Mom every morning. Check ins, mostly. They went both ways. She was always asking how I was doing, how my students were, what was planned for the day. I asked how she was feeling, what appointments she had on the docket, and usually, how in the world she maintained such joy through this trial.

That particular Monday morning, I sent my usual text. We had just talked on the phone the night before. All was well. She had eaten Applebee’s with Christen and gone on a walk with Dad. Nothing to fear. But unlike ever before, she wasn’t responding. My text hadn’t even been read. 

I was constantly checking my phone while also trying to teach. No response, no response, no response. I called Dad during lunch — he was home with her, like he had been since she was diagnosed. “I think she’s just sleeping,” Dad said, his voice a bit weary. “Cancer makes you sleepy.” He promised he was checking on her every couple of minutes, and I didn’t doubt him. He had hardly taken his eyes off her in the past six weeks. 

I prayed hard all throughout lunch. Still not a word. I could barely focus on what I was saying in class, and my stomach dropped to the floor when my desk drawer started vibrating with a phone call. Mid-lecture, I ran to pick it up. “I’m sorry — I have to take this.” I told my students. “Turn and discuss #3 amongst yourselves.”

Hands shaking, I picked up the phone. “She won’t wake up.” Dad said. “I called 911 and they’re transporting her. I’m following the ambulance now.” 

I immediately called our front office secretary (read also: superhero) and got coverage for my class. I ran down to Joe’s room and whisked him into the hall. “She won’t wake up,” I sobbed. “We need to go.”

He packed up his schoolwork and we were out the door. Within twenty minutes, we had our bags packed and were in the car with Cam and Riley, ready to head wherever they were taking her.

One of the most heart-wrenching parts of this story deals with my baby sister, Christen. She graduated high school that spring and was on the home stretch of her time at the Fire Academy to become a firefighter/EMT. She was on shift at the station that day. 11:34 AM: the tone dropped. Dispatcher read, “Report of a 50-year-old female, recently diagnosed with cancer, sleeping heavily. Lethargic. Unable to wake up.” Christen stood to her feet as slowly, in what I have to imagine felt like a blurry dream, the dispatcher read off our parents’ home address. 

“That’s my address,” Christen said to the team of first responders gearing up to make the run. “That’s my mom.” 

To this day, I can’t get through telling that story without crying. I don’t know if I ever will. The days that followed were some of the darkest, most difficult of my entire life. Even harder than the day she died. Seeing her unresponsive body hooked up to tubes and cords while silent seizures consumed her brain was almost more than we could handle. 

I remember feeling like I couldn’t even pray. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I certainly couldn’t eat. The fear was paralyzing, and it was only just the beginning. Our entire family, along with many friends, flocked to the Lafayette emergency room. There were numerous times we fell to our knees as the waves of shock and horror rolled in. 

I have tried to forget a lot about those days. Anytime a memory of Dad’s phone call or that cold hospital floor creeps into my mind, I will myself to think of something else. But there is something that I actually will myself to remember — a moment with my siblings. We snuck away to the chapel to pray together. It was often too hard for us to see her in that state, so we left Joe and Riley (the kid-in-laws) to be by her side.

It’s sort of like when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fire in Daniel 3, and yet, when the kings and guards looked into the blazing furnace, they exclaimed, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.” I think we seriously felt the presence of God in that room. His peace was evident enough. There was a supernatural calm that covered us in that hospital chapel. So much so that we were able to laugh. Smile. Breathe. To actually pray, rather than just groan. To confidently say “our mom knows Jesus, and that makes everything okay.”

And like those men in the furnace, we could trust that our God could deliver our mom from this. But even if He didn’t, He was worthy of our worship. Our mom knows Jesus. If she lives, she lives, and if she dies, she lives. 

It wasn’t enough to bring back our appetites. But it was enough for us to face the fiery trials ahead — to walk out of that chapel and into a hospital room, knowing our lives would never be the same, but that we were absolutely not in the fire alone.

Pictured above: in the hospital garden on the second day. Mom still unresponsive — finding joy in the little things, like a gift-shop gnome and time under a Gethsemane-shaped tree where we tried to pray, “thy will be done.”