Hello, and welcome to Day 25 of 31 Days of Life in South Africa! Are you looking for this week’s Five Minute Friday? It’s right over here. And you won’t want to miss the amazing giveaway from Fistbump Media — a fabulous offer where everyone is a winner! Click here to read all about it.
For today, it’s time to write for five minutes on the word ENJOY.
Here we go ..
It was a gift I never imagined.
A round-trip plane ticket from Cape Town to Michigan to visit my mother for her 59th birthday. We hadn’t spent her birthday together for over eight years, and it ended up being her last one here on earth.
Mom was dying of cancer.
I confided in a friend that although I was thrilled with such a generous and completely unexpected providence, I was nervous about what I would find on the other side. Nervous about how bad she had gotten, how much her condition had deteriorated in ways that couldn’t be perceived via a Skype screen.
“Just enjoy it,” my friend said.
I have no idea why those three words stuck with me, but they did.
Perhaps because I’m the type to stress over needless details and “what if’s” and work myself up over things that haven’t even transpired.
It seemed such simple advice, and yet so hard.
But I listened. And I enjoyed it. Yes, there were hard aspects of trying to sleep with the oxygen machine buzzing and humming, and me terrified that I might wake up in the morning and Mom would’ve breathed her last. I was scared that the machine would lie, and make me think it was still giving her breath, when really she was gone.
But more than that, we laughed. We painted. We ate good food. We talked. And we enjoyed that birthday like there was no tomorrow.
Because there might not have been.
Kate,
We are alike in this way: “stress over needless details and “what if’s” and work myself up over things that haven’t even transpired.”
But it is so hard to read posts like yours from women who had such amazing love and relationship with their mothers, because I did not. I still do not. My mother is 77, and she is not involved in my life or the life of my children. We sit together at church, but she gets up to leave without saying goodbye. Everything we have is superficial.
I try to push past this, and I’ve went to counseling recently to try to deal with painful feelings, but I have to trust that God will be there for me where my mother cannot.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Loved the post! Oh how I enjoyed today. Walking in the woods, climbing hills, being a part of nature, out with my husband. I have an eye condition that is limiting my vision. I don’t know how many more years I will be able to enjoy this. So I enjoy it when I can. God gave us a perfect day! I needed the change of pace. My heart would only let me go so fast up and down. But it was so special. It does not have to be expensive or elaborate, simple things bring such joy if we let them.
As I read this post I remembered the joy of giving gifts to my mom and spending time with her and making her birthday special. Now she is with God and each day is special. No more pain or struggles. What a gift to know that she is at peace. She so enjoyed her life here and I am sure she is enjoying heaven.
the end