Ode to Mom

Sorry about the lapse in postings. The past several weeks have involved remembering a rough time in our lives. My mother passed away a year ago after a quick battle with bile duct cancer, a silent one that leaves its victims with less than six months to live once discovered. One thing I've learned over the years is that cancer shows no respect to any area of the body and will grow wherever it pleases.

I could deviate and talk about cancer but that would not serve the purpose I have for this post.

Mom was an amazing person. Many may not realize what she accomplished in her life time. She spoke no English when she won a language-based-scholarship to study in America. She married a man who could not afford a maid, so she had to learn to cook, clean and raise children all by herself. She taught herself to paint oils and watercolors out of her loneliness for home. Later, after being taught Chinese Brush Painting by an expert, she instructed others in all areas of painting.

She experienced a mixture of receptions while she lived in America. From those thinking all people from Mexico were poor and uneducated to those who spoke to her because she was from Mexico. On many occasions she was asked to speak about her native home. She was even invited by military base leadership to accompany visiting dignitaries because of who she was.

Through it all she kept her eyes on Jesus. Right before the process of finding out what was going on with her body she complained to God that she had no one to talk with or to share what she had to say. But there in the hospital while all the tests were being run, she greeted everyone who entered her room. Telling them that her life was in God's hands and why she knew it. She didn't preach at them. She just loved on them. When they moved her to another unit, the first unit people came to visit. When she returned to the hospital for more procedures, they came back again. While waiting for me to bring the car around at the end of her stay she heard a small voice tell her, "It is finished." Less than six weeks later she was gone.

Once I knew of her desire to reach out to others I started a blog for her. Unfortunately, I was too late to have fresh lessons posted. And even though the postings are from her written memoirs she is still reaching others for God.

If I can take away anything from her life it's this. Life may not always be easy going and pleasurable, and some of the people you meet along the way make you want to shake some sense into them. But, we shouldn't let anything stop us from going on an adventure in life and doing all that God has for us to do.