May 5, 2014....Sandra Jean Thorn Addison

Yesterday I asked my mom what she wanted for Mother's Day, and she said...."A kiss from my mother."  At 10:22 pm, she got that kiss as she entered the gates of Heaven.  Mom passed away peacefully last night.  Her heart just stopped beating, and although the hospital room was chaotic; she was not.  When I went to visit her in the nursing home yesterday, I saw the sweetest elderly couple sitting outside in the sun.  The gentleman was caressing his disabled and confused wife's hand, and I couldn't help but think that soon enough my daddy would be caressing his bride's hand again after all these years.  As I watched my mom throughout the day and spoke to her caregivers, I didn't know what to do.  The decisions were hard, and I couldn't make them alone; so I told God...."You do it.  Whatever You decide is what is best."  I gave it to Him.  My mama wanted to go home, and it became apparent this past weekend that she couldn't go back to her house alone.  By the time we got to the ER tonight, I had decided she would come home with us once she was strong enough; but she didn't get to come home with us.  For the first few hours after she died, I felt like I failed her....why didn't I just take her home?  But then God reminded me that I had asked Him to decide, and it dawned on me....she did get to go home....where she was greeted with a kiss from her mom, a caress from the husband she adored and missed so deeply and into the waiting arms of Jesus!  She is whole once again, and I rejoice because of that.  I had forgotten how badly a broken heart hurts, but I know hers is not broken anymore; and that makes my broken heart a little more bearable.  I covet your prayers especially for my children.  Addi and Drew are taking the news very very hard.  Cal is confused, yet he knows there is a reason to be sad.  We haven't told Bryna and Elliot yet and probably won't until after school today, but they will both be heart broken.  Bryna went with me to the ER and smiled a huge smile when Moo called her Drew and said, "Drew is my grand daughter, I would know her anywhere."  Addi too came to the ER, and I could tell that she knew the end was near.  Drew was shaken up quite a bit each time we would see Moo and really wanted to remember her before she got sick.  Seeing her suffer was more than she could take.  The broken hearts of me, Neil and my children are a testimony of what an amazing mother and grandmother she was and how our lives will be forever changed for good at having her in them.  As I share the news of her passing, there will be many other hearts broken.  They will break for us, because of how our time with her was cut so short; and they will break for themselves because of how their time with her was cut so short.  What I cling to is the vision of her in heaven, with no more pain and no more sickness, holding my dad's hand as he leads her out on the dance floor.  She loved to dance, and she hasn't been able to dance for a very long time; but now she is dancing in celebration of the new life in eternity she has been given.