mother’s day: a day of remembrance

I’ll never forget where I was when my dad broke the news that my mom had cancer.

The wooden island table in our kitchen had been the center of operation for numerous casseroles and baking experiments. It was where my dad opened the mail after a hard day of work, listening to his kids report back to him about grades and extracurriculars. Many times, I’d had heart to hearts with my mom, me leaning on that wooden island, her washing dishes. Now, we were gathered there for an unknown reason.

It was August 20, 2019. My dad didn’t even get through the sentence before he stopped, bit his lip, and teared up.

That was the first time I saw my father cry.

The thing about cancer is that you never think your family will be touched by it. When that terribly heavy c-word drops on you, you truly understand the words of David in Psalm 139: “surely the darkness shall cover me.”

My mom is my hero. I always felt like a carbon copy of her and I loved her fiercely. I’m ashamed to say that my first reaction to the cancer news was a terrible, sure feeling that God was going to take her away from me. 

For my family, there would be no Red Sea parting.

No walking on water.

In that moment, I limited the God of the universe. I wrote my own chapter, and the ending was this: the fierce God of heaven would use my mom against me to bring me to the end of myself.

And yet, over the next year and a half, God taught me so much about Himself . . . but through my mom’s life. Through her fighting, her sweet spirit, her constant faith. It made me ashamed of myself: I wasn’t the one who was battling for her life, so why was I struggling so much?

Mother’s Day means so much to me. When I think of my mom, I remember her asking me the hard questions, seeing her more vulnerable than I ever thought she would be. I remember going grocery shopping with my sister and bringing my brothers to practice, marveling at all the sacrifice my mom had made throughout the years in faithfully completing these errands.

Mother’s Day for me, because of mom’s battle with cancer, is an Ebenezer (Samuel then took a large stone and placed it between the towns of Mizpah and Jeshanah. He named it Ebenezer which means “the stone of help”, for he said, “Up to this point the LORD has helped us! 1 Samuel 7:12). God used a situation I labeled unredeemable to touch so many peoples’ lives; to knit our family closer together in solidarity; and to make a holiday point back to Him.

I pray that this holiday for you too can be an Ebenezer. What can you remember on this day? How the word for God’s compassion in Hebrew has the connotation of a fierce maternal love? How God is ironing out the years of wrinkles in your relationship with your mother? Or maybe in the beautiful life that your mother lived while she was here on earth.

Dear friend, happy Mother’s Day. Make it a great one.