Giving Mom to God

I will always remember sitting around the fellowship table with women from my Bible study group when the suggested just as mother's often are called to give their children to God, that I should consider giving my Mom to God.   Just as it is difficult for mother to stop worrying and caring for a grown child, I was unable to make decisions for my mother that impacted her care.  I needed to trust my mother with God.

When my grandmother passed away, I'd promised my grandmother that I would look out for Mom.  I regularly would drive up to Paradise, California where Mom was living in my grandmother's house to check on her and help her with things.  It would be unkind for me to list all the different ways in which Mom needed help then.  She was grieving the loss of Grandma and coming to terms with having retired to take care of Grandma.  On top of that, she shortly lost her brother, sister-in-law and dearly beloved ex-daughter-in-law.  

It had been over five years since Grandma had passed, it seemed like Mom had adjusted.   She'd taken the huge step of having a stomach bypass surgery had lost much of the weight and had hoped that it would reduce her back and joint pain.  Mom was unhappy living in Grandma's old house .  She seeing a counselor but eventually stopped when her counselor gave her an ultimatum that she needed to stop drinking.  Mom had put all the weight she'd lost from her stomach bypass back on from drinking.  Our family was deeply concerned about Mom's health, and since I lived the closest, I began going with Mom to her doctor appointments to try to get a better handle on what doctors where saying to her.  The family was also concerned about Mom mixing pain medications with alcohol.   Mom resisted the help; it seemed as though when she went into the doctor's office that she wanted to have a relationship with doctors more than truly sort out her health.  I would document what I learned and send the information back to my sister and my niece who is a nurse.

Eventually Mom let me know she wanted to sell Grandma's house and move into another place.  My husband offered to have us look for a house we could buy for her in Colorado or California.  Mom and I took a trip to Colorado to look for a house.   My hope was that by living in Colorado, Mom would be closer to family there, be less lonely, be happier.   In the end, Mom turned down the offer to buy her a house, told the story to other family members that my husband and I were wanting to put her in a home.  On the drive back to California from Colorado, I broke down into tears asking Mom how could she do this to us kids.  How could she turn to alcohol now, late in life, after all that us kids had had to live with with my father's alcoholism.  I was deeply hurt. Only later did I learn that Mom was developing a romantic relationship with her neighbor and helping him to have his wife sent to a home because of her mental illness.  

It was the aftermath of that visit with Mom that culminated in my Bible study group suggesting that I needed to give Mom to God.   Sometime later, I sent Mom a note to tell her all of the ways I am grateful for her.   She asked me if I was saying "good bye" forever in that letter.  I had some visitors staying with me for a Christian camp at church that weekend when I received Mom's letter.   They asked me how I was doing, and for some reason, I just sobbed when they told me that they wanted to let me know how much I was loved.  I had no idea I was holding in so much grief.