give me jesus on the line

March 26, 2015.

I get Mom settled on the sofa.

“That’s going to be nice eh Sue?” She says. “Is it going to be nice the last one?”

“Yes, it will be,” I reply. Her words remind me there’s something important I want to say. I take her hands in mine. “Mom, I want to tell you something,” I begin. “Just in case something happens and I can’t come to see you, don’t worry about it OK? Her eyes lock on mine. All of sudden she is completely focussed.

“Oh,” she says low and quiet.

“It’s not because I don’t want to be here. Somebody might stop me from coming to see you,” I say.

“Is that right?” Here voice is even softer and lower now.

“Yeah.” I affirm.

“Like who?” She asks.

“I don’t know Mom,” I lie. “But I just wanted you to know that if it happens, if I don’t come, it’s not because I don’t want to.” My voice cracks. Tears threaten.

“No, I know,” she says. “I know. I know it’s not want to.” Bits and pieces get lost on the way from her brain to her mouth. But she has divine help getting her message across.

“I don’t want you to want the the the thing,” her words skip and stumble in a dementia rush. “You know…because it’s not my thing. And I don’t like things like that.”

“I know Mom,” I try to comfort her despite my fear and despair.

“I don’t like it like it…I I I I just don’t like it. Because it belongs to the the the the the…. It belongs to…. It belongs to the person it belongs to.” She’s hit the nail on the head. “And I remember that that remembrance. Near that person I have to… I feel that it’s right or wrong, you know. I don’t want it to be a wrong thing. It won’t change any way at all,” she continues. “It’s not going to change anything. Because it’s all, it’s all, it’s all the things. It’s the singing of everything.”

It’s the singing of everything. The totality is meant to be. There’s purpose behind the pain. Her wisdom sometimes blows my mind.

“I just wanted you to know Mom. I didn’t want you to be upset or anything,” I say.

Click on the player if you would like to hear the full unedited audio version of the conversation. It’s about eleven minutes long.

“No, I didn’t want to be upset. You know that,” she says.

“I know but I wanted to tell you in case you don’t see me that it’s not because I didn’t want to come Mom,” I repeat. I know in her core she will understand why if I never see her again in this life.

“We know that Sue. We all know that.” Her voice is firm and strong. It gives me hope.

“So we have to make the most of the time we have together, Mom.” I squeeze her hands a little for emphasis.

“That’s right. That’s right. We have to get the silver sign. And that’s got to be signature. That’s it,” she says.

“Yes,” I say.

I’m glad I’ve  told her. As crazy as it may sound, she knows stuff, even though she has trouble articulating the depth of her understanding. She knows.

“You’ve been out running the roads this morning,” she observed the other day.

“You’re right Mom. I have been. I had to do some shopping,” I laughed. “How did you know? How do you know these things you have no way of knowing?”

She looked me straight in the eye and spoke her truth: “The Lord tells me,” she said.

Take my short survey on behaviour here.

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