'I Don't Want to See You Crying From Heaven'

Continued from page 1

My mother was dying due to a sepsis infection. As she laid there she could not speak but she could move her hands. i was crying -- i dont think i have ever cried that hard or felt so much pain in my life. then all of a sudden she motioned for paper and a pencil, and as i stood there crying she wrote "Please don't cry for me (i am in the arms of jesus he is holding me now!). of course i never stopped crying and my mother died that night. but i know in my heart she was at peace. --

I never had the last goodbye, the last kiss, or the last hug. People don't know how lucky they are that have that. I found my husband dead in bed. I went in to give him his bedtime medicine and that's what I found. Something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I keep saying to myself, why wasn't I there? If I didn't have my faith in God I wouldn't be here today. I take one day at a time and I firmly believe that Johnny is watching over me as if I have my own special angel. --

I was with my mother who was being put on morphine drip after years of painful cancers. As we talked she looked at me and said "I was always so proud of you" and she thanked me for being there with her. I have 3 other siblings and I was blessed to have had heard Mom's last words to me and to this day 10 years latter I still can hear her voice saying her words. --

I was in tears as my 13-year-old son saw me and he said, "Dad, please don't cry." I have been unable to stop. It will be 12 years this May, and I still miss him, even more, and have too many tears left! I have burried a mother, father, a brother -- but all three cannot match the total grief of losing my precious son. --

My Grandma passed away on October 15, 1997, and before her death, we spoke on the phone many times during her last days. While we were talking she would ask me, "Can you hear them? Can your hear my babies? My babies and my husband Robert are here with me, the babies are playing at the foot of my bed." I told her, "No I can't hear the babies, but I know you are happy to see them and please tell Grandpa I love and miss him very much." My Grandma lost six of her twelve children while they were very young and I knew at that point they were with her to take her home. --

My mother, she just kept repeating, "You are beautiful, I love you, I love you, I love you." I was filled with love and awe for being loved so much that she would think only of me on her deathbed and in her suffering. --

The final two weeks of my father's life were not easy for him; he was losing a 9-month battle with esophageal cancer. I shared with him how unfair I thought it was that he went through a difficult surgery to remove the tumor and he was still going to die. I felt he should at least get a couple years to live and see his grandchildren grow up. I remember him saying, "Those are the breaks, you are just going to have to learn to deal with it." At the time I thought his words were harsh, but looking back on it they were words of truth and harsh reality. He obviously had come to terms with his own death and now was helping me be more accepting. --

Before my mother died all she said is that "It will all come out in the wash." Boy! It was strange. I keep on trying to figure out what she had meant. God Bless! --

My son died Feb. 3, 2004 from Cystic Fibrosis. I called him early in the evening to find out how his day was. Before we hung up I said "I love you" and he said "Right back at you." He was 27 years old. He went to sleep after that and did not wake up. --

At the very end, as i held my mother-in-law's hand, she asked me, "Do you see her? My mother--do you see her blue eyes? She has beautiful eyes." She was smiling the most beautiful smile that I had ever seen and I knew that she was seeing her mother, waiting for her. I told her that it was time to go; that i would be alright. I cannot tell you how comforting that knowledge is to me... that we will be met by those that we have loved and who have loved us!! Just as Jesus did. Ruth was always, to the very end, a source strength and an example of faith for me and i am forever grateful. --

My mother's last words to me were Goodbye Honey. She said this to me while I'll was scrubbing the kitchen floor. She left the house and came back in looked at me again and said, "I love you, Honey. Be a good girl. I'll be with you." I was fourteen years old at the time. I believe she had never left me until I was in my sixties and sometime I think I feel her near me still and I'm older now. Of course I didn't know at the time they would be her last words to me, but I never forgot them. I love her as much today as I did when growing up. --