Tender Mercies

July 2

I got a phone call from my sister Tracy. I asked her how she was. She said, “not good.”

I said, "Should we come now?”

and she said “I think you better.” I asked if she had talked to anyone else.

I told her we would take care of letting family know and we would be there to give her hugs as fast as we could.

Dad, Spence, Karyn and all the kids drove through the night and got there before 7:30am. Liz was struggling to breathe. Seeing her was excruciating. Last we had seen, talked and texted her, she was so alive and so hopeful and vibrant and the contrast now was tremendous.

She looked pained and labored just maintaining her oxygen. She moaned as she breathed and her skin was yellowing due to the liver failure.

Emma and Thane were amazing during our stay in the hospital room. They knew that we were in an important place and they were reverent as they sat with Liz. Emma and I spent a lot of our time holding hands with Liz or rubbing her feet with lotion. Her feet were thick, swollen and cold. Emma sat quietly and patiently holding Lizzy’s hand and keeping a half smile on her face. She seemed to sense the gravity pulling us all into reality. We have had lots of opportunities to talk about death and the resurrection and she didn’t seem scared or worried. She didn’t have the composure of a 4 year-old; it was more like 24. She and Thane would come to daddy and I and give us hugs then, go back and hold Liz some more. IT was a tender mercy that we made it in time to see Liz. IT was a tender mercy that our children were able to sit and let us soak in the time we had left with her and her family.

At 9am Brad, JD, Andre, Phil, Dad, Spencer, and Ben all circled around Liz’s bed. Brad choked on the emotion, and the significance of the moment, which then reverberated across the room. There were no dry or silent eyes. He gave his baby girl her final blessing and released her from her mortal body and her experience here. I cannot imagine it being more difficult.

I was silently humbled and draped with the spirit as the pain grew in intensity for all of us who would be left behind. It was a communing moment for me as we said our last goodbyes and gave her kisses and hugs.

Again it was a tender mercy to feel the surge of the spirit of God as I felt the flat emptiness of impending death. The spirit was there to comfort and console even as the holes of sadness and separation were opening.

It was difficult to see the pain of others…at the hospital, in the viewing, in the funeral, at the grave. It will be for a long time. The pain is not gone but gets dulled for a short time by the immediate needs of decisions, plans and oodles of family and friends. It is a Tender Mercy to celebrate life yet to be lived with those left behind and to have family and friends step in and do so much. What would we do without the love of others? Service was a repeated Tender Mercy.

We watched fireworks for the 4^th of July and thought about it as a magnificent send off and a commemoration of her freedom from her pained body.

She never did complain about the pain... even when the cancer had destroyed some of her vertebrae.

A Tender Mercy when we watched her young cousins sing "He Sent His Son" at the funeral. They were angels that day and they sang with their hearts and their voices perfectly in tune. It was AMAZING.

A Tender Mercy when we (adult family) sang " Be Still My Soul". We were not singing alone. There were others there with us in the third verse...

"Be still, my soul; the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord,
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love's purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul; when change and tears are past,
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last."

The feeling while we sang that hymn together...I won't forget that Tender Mercy.

Emma asked me more about the resurrection…

She said ,”Mom, when will Liz come back to life?”

I said, “ in the resurrection.”

“Yes, but when is the resurrection?”

I said, “When Jesus comes back to earth again, then there will be another resurrection. No one knows exactly when it will be, dear, not even the prophet. We just need to live so that we can know Him when He comes and keep his commandments so we can have his spirit to help us.”

“How come Liz didn’t have to die on the cross to be resurrected like Jesus?”

“We don’t have to die the same way Jesus did to be resurrected. Part of His gift to us, is the gift of the resurrection. Because He died for us and rose again, we can all rise again and have a perfect body with no more hurts, owies, cancers, or sickness.”

“Oh.”

“But mom, I miss Liz.”

“I do too Sweetheart. Very much.”

A tender mercy because my 4 year old was thinking and is still praying for an understanding. She prays daily for Liz and for her resurrection.