I went to see my Mom April 8-11. It was a special time with her as well as my sister, Louise Larsen. My Mom is 85 and lives at the Quarryville Presbyterian Retirement Community in the Convalescent Unit. She isn't able to walk very well and is slow to process what she hears. She also can't hear well so you have to talk right into her hearing aid. I'm finding it hard to see her so sporadically.
Sometimes I think about the different stages of "leaving" during our missionary career. I thought leaving my folks those early years when I was still in my 20's and 30's and our kids were little was hard. Then we began leaving kids in college and that was really hard. Then our kids started getting married and having their own children and we had to leave grandkids and that was tough. Now, I'm back to leaving my Mom again and I'm wondering how long I can keep this up. When we took our second son to college I was reminded of a song that talked about "calling" and goes something like this "When you called my name I didn't know how far that calling went". Now I find myself thinking once again about calling and how calling and honoring my Mom go together. I long to
be by my Mom's side, touching her, smiling with her, putting lotion on her dry skin, wheeling her outside to feel the warm sun, pushing her food onto her fork so she can still feed herself, cleaning her glasses, praying with her, hearing her precious giggle when she mistakes me for my sister, reminiscing as we look at pictures together, seeing her eyes light up when I kneel down beside her and wake her up from a nap, feeling her kiss on my cheek, hearing her call me Lizzie. I want to honor her and I want to honor God. For now, that means being far from her and writing to her often. But, I pray God gives me the privilege of being by her side when He decides to take her home.
