Her New Home

As I shared in my last posting our daughter was losing her battle with cancer. On July 6th at around 7:30AM she went to her eternal reward.

Her passing was peaceful. She was accompanied by our prayers and surrounded by family, friends, and a wonderful caring staff at Sacred Space, the hospice care facility where she spent her final 4 days.

I have no words to express the grief that her mom and I feel. There is a hole in our heart and our lives that cannot ever be filled. For us this just validates that no parent should ever have to bury their child.

While it does not ease our sense of loss, the sad reality of our world today with war, drugs, violence and other tragedies this occurs all too often. That is a discussion for another time.

What brings comfort to us are words that were shared to me by a friend who lost his daughter at 38 years of age to cancer. His words were that he found comfort in the fact that his daughter was now perfectly healed. Her mom and I find comfort in those same words. Our loving, funny, kind, talented, creative, and generous daughter and mother to our granddaughter is now perfectly and completely healed. For all eternity she will feel no more pain, no more sickness, no more distress.

As I said before, we know where her home is now. She is living in that city that has “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gave it light, and its lamp was the Lamb.”

Her life challenges us to live in such a way as to be able to join her some day in the not too distant future.

The Body is Failing

As some of you know our daughter has been battling cancer for about 4 years now. About a year after her diagnosis, surgery and Chemo she went into remission. About a year ago the cancer returned in her liver and pancreas area. Due to the widespread nature of the Liver involvement, surgery was really not an option. Radiation delayed and eased her discomfort. They tried chemo and immunotherapy. Nothing worked. They sought a second opinion at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Hospital in New York City only to have the prognosis confirmed that she had only weeks, maybe months, but not years.

She has fought the good fight. She has run the race. She did not give in until there was no other choice.

Her decline has been so rapid and debilitating we can no longer provide the quality of care she needs at home. She made known to her husband weeks back that it was her wish to not die in the house. She wanted to spare her daughter the memory of Mommy dying in this house.

So today with tears and prayers she is being admitted to a facility built specifically for Hospice Care Patients.

We are going to be left with a big hole right in the middle of our hearts and lives. We have to carry on helping our son-in-law with our young Granddaughter who will be going to First Grade this year.

We do not worry about her eternal home as we know where that is going to be. It is us who will miss her presence, her smile, her phone calls and her laugh.