Big Enough Children

It was early October, 1979, six days before my mom died. She was to be admitted to the Cleveland Clinic the next day for her third heart surgery. This was Sunday afternoon. She shared with me a secret...she wouldn't be coming home from this hospital stay. She was tired of being sick, and had told the Lord she would rather die than continue to suffer. She believed she was going to die. She gave up.

I was stunned. No, Mom, you're not going to die, I pleaded with her. But, she rattled off a list of things for me to remember when she was gone: always take your purse with you wherever you go; as soon as I'm gone, your dad will try to move you kids to Florida...fight him for all you're worth, but do not let him take you and your sister to Florida (which he did, and which I did); and so on. She showed me where the "important papers" were, then she said something I'll never forget.

I used to pray that God would let me live long enough to see my children big enough to take care of themselves. Now, I wish I had prayed to see my grandchildren. Her youngest had turned thirteen only days before. I was sixteen, and my brothers seventeen and eighteen. Yet, we were not big enough to take care of ourselves. Not really. Of course, we could take care of basic physical needs. But, none of us were really big enough to do without our mother. We needed her touch, her smile, her comfort, her guidance, and her faith in us.

This past Saturday, I heard a woman say that she wishes her grown children--ages nineteen and twenty--would move out of her house. I'm done raising kids, she said. They're big enough to take care of themselves!

My heart filled with sadness, as my mind drifted back to that fateful afternoon when my mom declared her kids were big enough to take care of themselves. If she could have seen where our lives would eventually lead, and how great were our needs, she would have never given up. I know that now.

God grant me the time in life that my son needs from me. Help me to never give up. Give me the forsight to realize that my job is not through when my son ages out of adolescence. Help me to be there for him, as You have been here for me.