THE PASSING OF THE STRONGEST WOMAN I KNOW
Many of you know that my mother has been fighting Sarcoidosis for the past 6 years. It has been a very difficult journey for her and my family over these years but she has always stayed positive. This strength and unwavering positive attitude has inspired everyone who came into contact with her. No matter what I was going through in my life, I always thought of mom and was inspired to stay positive.
On Friday May 20th around 2:15 her fight with this disease ended and she went home. The following is an email that my dad sent out Saturday morning to our church family and I would like to share it with you.
Calvary Friends,
You have all been such dear friends and continue to show your love of Christ to us as our family faced the trials of Bev’s illness and now her passing to be with our Lord. I wanted to let you know what happened at Bev’s passing yesterday since it was such a comfort to our family and hopefully in some small way will help comfort you who like us loved her dearly. Please feel free to pass this along to anyone that you think would be blessed by what happened.
After a number of conversations with the doctors and receiving the news that her kidney’s were about to shut down and even though some of the doctors wanted to continue treatment hoping to save her liver we as a family decided not to go forward with any additional treatments. After her seizure Tuesday night she never regained consciousness and even in the coma we could see on her face that she was still experiencing pain from the Sarcoids that has been so active this year.
Once the consent to pull life support was signed the nurses moved very quickly to prepare her for removing the ventilator. The family waited outside the room until they were finished then we were allowed in around 2:08pm. I, the kids and her brother and sister were in the room with her. She was breathing on her own, but with very shallow breaths, but showed no pain and looked peaceful. We talked to her and after a few minutes I put my hand on her chest and prayed aloud that if it was God’s will at this time it was OK with the family to take her home to relieve her from further suffering. It was raining outside and her brother Rick said look outside and when we looked up a hole in the clouds was opening up and a ray of sun shown in front of the hospital window into the Grand View parking lot. I looked down at Bev and said God is opening heaven for you. Her head was facing Brian sitting on the other side of the bed and her eyes opened a little and her head moved from one side of the bed to my side facing me and my daughter Jen said Dad mom just passed away. At that moment we looked outside and the hole in the clouds closed up and it started raining again. Only about 10 minutes had passed and I told the family that God had just opened up heaven to take Bev home and now he was crying with us as we mourned her leaving us.
We all felt including Rick and Debbie that God was taking her home and letting us know she was with him. The timing was perfect and it gave us all a peace about making the difficult decision not to continue treatment and to remove her from life support. After 6 years of fighting the good fight we know that Bev is dancing again with Jesus. When we came home our grandsons were there and I told the story to Josh who is 10 years old. I didn’t give any time but just related the events and how grandma was with God now. He asked if it was about 2:00 when grandma passed away because he and his class saw the sun come out and then close up and start raining again and that like us he got to see grandma go to heaven.
Thanks for your love and God Bless you all,
Ken and family
I love you Mom.
Update: This photo was taken May 20th around 2:15 by a church friend. They were waiting for the sky to clear for a wedding they were attending.
