In the mid 1970s, when I was a teenager, my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer. Three operations did not eradicate it, so by August of 1978, she was admitted to a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, for palliative care. When I heard this, I quit my job in Waco and went to be with her. My husband remained in Waco to work.

 

When I saw her semi-conscious in bed with IVs, I stepped into the hospital corridor to call her doctor. “This is Ruth Moore’s daughter, and I just wanted to know—she can’t eat anything, can she? And another operation is impossible, isn’t it? So—how long can she go on like this?” His answer was so evasive and dishonest, I hung up on him and went back to her room. This was on August 19.

 

I sat and watched as she roused herself to speak a little to visitors. Relatives, mostly, came and spoke briefly, cheerfully to her, then left in tears after seeing her wasted condition. She was only 53.

 

A few came from Mother’s church, also, where she had taught Sunday school until she was too weak to continue. When her pastor came, I doubted I could rouse her. But when I told her he was here, she opened her eyes to look at him. I stood by while he talked with her for a moment before asking if he could pray. She nodded, and he prayed something like, “Our Father, we come before you today on behalf of your servant Ruth. We ask your healing grace and strength on her, and we commit her care to your hands. Lord, we pray for your comforting presence for her and her family and for your love to be showered on them in this trial. We praise you for your victory over sin and sickness and death. For it is in Jesus’ name that we pray; amen.” Mother nodded assent throughout. When he finished, he grasped her hand for a moment, then quietly left.

 

As that last week progressed, I sat by her bed during the day and dozed in the second bed during the night, leaving only a couple of times to shower at my parents’ house before going straight back to her room. One night I was awakened by a man entering to flip on the overhead lights and begin making a lot of noise with a folded bed. I watched him for a minute, then said, “Can you do that tomorrow? She’s trying to rest.”

 

He stood without looking at me, then abruptly walked out. I checked Mom, who appeared only vaguely aware of the racket. Then as I settled back down on the second bed, I realized that the man had been in street clothes, not a uniform. He was not a hospital employee. And I remembered hearing about men just walking into this downtown hospital to rob or assault. There I was, a young woman alone in an unsecured room. But he just turned around and left.

 

During that week, I had plenty of time to just watch her and reflect. I did not think about God or heaven or even praying. My husband and I seldom went to church, so I did not blame God for what was happening to my mother. I figured He didn’t really care.

 

However, I had seen her grow closer to Him through these last few years. She studied the Bible with the intensity of a new convert, and read aloud from the Psalms at the dinner table. And it had been the joy of her life to spend the previous Christmas in Jerusalem.

 

Toward the end of that week in the hospital, she drifted in and out of consciousness and seemed to hallucinate. At one point, she awoke with a start and said, “Where’s the baby?”

 

“Mama . . . what baby?” I asked.

 

“I was playing with a baby,” she said, looking around. That was Mother, all right, who had five children and always said she wished she’d had two more . . . who used to tease me and my husband, “All my friends have grandchildren, but I don’t have any grandchildren.”

 

“Mama, there’s no baby,” I told her. She sighed and closed her eyes again, and I felt like I was missing something crucial.*

 

A few days later, she awoke and asked me without preface, “Am I getting better?” It never occurred to me to lie to her. So I just sat there with tears running down my face. She accepted that and closed her eyes.

 

Around noon on Sunday, August 27th, I was sitting by her bed doing needlework, waiting for my husband to join us. Suddenly, she gasped once, then again and again—and stopped. I thought my heart had stopped, too. I couldn’t look up from the needlework; I couldn’t bear to see it. At the same time, I felt compelled to look at her.

 

As I raised my head, the realization burst on me that something stupendous had just happened. It was not simply the release of a suffering soul, but a victory, a triumph, a brilliant overcoming. I neither saw nor heard anything unusual, but the impression was so strong that it left me rooted breathless to my chair. Her faith in God’s goodness had been vindicated full measure.

 

My husband came in, then, and summoned the doctor. I vaguely remember questions: Which funeral home to call? Did we want an autopsy?

 

The subsequent days were a blur, as I could only think about what had happened when she died. What had I witnessed? Nothing, I told myself. Of course I would have strong feelings watching her die. But I knew that wasn’t it. Seeing her die would not have left me feeling like I had witnessed a miracle unless someone cared enough to give me a hint about what was really happening.

 

When I returned to Waco after the funeral, I picked up a Bible and opened it at random to read, “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘Oh, Death, where is your victory? Where is your sting?’” (1 Cor. 15:54-55 ESV)