By: Debbie Moore-Black, RN

Her back is mottled. She could barely sit up. Weak from her invasive cancer

I visited her on this Easter Sunday.  Maybe it was God’s will that I didn’t have a pageantry of an Easter spread dinner table with ham and rolls and pies and house decor filled with decorative bunnies…

And I go to visit this dear friend I met by happenstance years ago.  She and her dear husband  always seemed to help me out.
Pure. Unconditional. Love.
Always kind and helpful to me.

I held her weak hand and said I did not know how I stood on the hierarchy of the ladder to Jesus but that I always keep her in my prayers.
And in her whisper she told me that God heard the smallest of prayers.
It was comforting but sad.

Till the end she held strong in her faith as cancer invaded her breast and lungs and lymph nodes and bone and spine and liver.

I assisted her husband changing the dressing surrounding her chest tube poking out of her. This day we drained 650 cc’s off of her lungs as it slowly trickled into the pleurovac.

Such a vibrant life filled with love and family and books, as she loved to read, and her deep love for her church family and her spirituality.

I was amazed and perplexed over the sadness of this all but I could feel the love of her husband and daughter.
There was a peaceful aura of Godness in the air. Not a panic. But a calmness that filled the air.

I knew it was only a matter of time before God opened the skies and lifted this dear friend into His kingdom.
She was only in her 60’s and we always wonder why?

The Bible says we don’t know the hour of our death.

Two days later her husband requested that I come check on his beloved wife. It was time to drain her pleural fluid again but she was sleeping.
I immediately came to their house.
She was unresponsive. Agonal breathing. Her family thought there was more time.
We always hope for more time.

Anxiety and pain eased up as she lifted her eyes to the heavens and then peacefully closed her eyes. With a slight smile on her face. A peaceful smile.

She had left this earth with a grieving tearful husband and daughter.
And we question why.
To only know that her reward in heaven is what she lived for all her life.

Rest peacefully my dear friend.
You are in the House of the Lord.