Finding Life in the Resurrection

I will never forget the moment I walked in to find my mother had taken her last breath.

I stopped in my tracks on the nursing home’s linoleum floor, asking my father, who was right behind me, “Is she dead?” Slowly, I backed away, up against the wall across from her bed, as I stared at her lifeless body in disbelief. It took me weeks to get the image of my dead mother, complete with an inconsiderate fly alighting on her face, out of the forefront of my mind.

That day was the culmination of a decade of suffering, in which I had watched my mother succumb to the effects of early onset Alzheimer’s disease in her fifties.

She lost her words, then her memories, then her relationships, then her independence, and finally, she lost her life. I had been preparing for her death for months, and thanks to her hospice nurse I knew it was coming that week. Yet her passing still hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was in shock, operating like an emotionless robot. I immediately tried to call my brother to relay the news, but there was no answer. Next, I called my mom’s best friend, who lived a couple of hours away but had visited her the day before. I listened to her talk, trying to absorb what was happening but not really letting myself feel anything.

It wasn’t until one of my mother’s nurses, who had cared for her for several years, said, “I just heard. I’m so sorry, Lauren,” and hugged me that the tears came. Days later, it finally soaked in that my mother’s long fight with dementia was over. Her time on earth was finished.

Death is never easy, even when you know it’s coming, even when you know the result is so much better than the darkness in front of you right now.

I can only imagine how Jesus’s family and friends must have felt the day he died on the cross at Golgotha. The disciples had been told he would return, and yet their hearts must have ached at his brutal pain and their terrible loss. The Bible tells us, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30 ESV).

The ground shook, the sky went dark, and the curtain of the temple ripped from top to bottom. The whole earth felt his loss.

Yet Jesus’s traumatic and wrongful death ultimately meant life, as did my mother’s passing. When she left her physical, mental, and emotional suffering behind, her story and legacy began anew through the lives of her children and grandchildren and the countless other people she touched.

Her spirit is more accessible to me now than it ever was in the throes of dementia. Now I feel my mother is always with me, an essential part of my inner being, in much the same way that the Holy Spirit is ever-present, guiding me and constantly connecting me back to the Father because of the Son’s great sacrifice.

My mother was not only a high school English teacher but my spiritual mentor and Bible teacher. The unrelenting and passionate sharing of her faith made a lasting impact on the formation of my character.

The apostle Paul wrote to his beloved disciple Timothy, “I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control” (2 Timothy 1:5-7 ESV).

The first person to ever tell me about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit was my mother. As an anxious and terrified child who struggled to understand why God would let bad things happen, she promised me my name was already written in the Book of Life, and that I was chosen and loved by a perfect Father regardless of my doubt and confusion. When I was a teenager, my mother coached me through accepting Christ as my Savior.

We didn’t agree on every detail of theology or biblical interpretation, but she effectively taught me to love and follow the Lord by both instruction and example. She, too, struggled with anxiety but wanted me to trust God. She, too, struggled with fear but wanted me to know that, despite any earthly circumstance, “It is finished.” The death of Christ means the gift of life for all who receive him.

In the darkness of my mother’s death, I found hope in the light of Jesus’s resurrection.

Lauren Flake writes about her journey as a wife, mom to two little girls and Alzheimer’s daughter in her native Austin, Texas, at For the Love of Dixie. Her first book, Where Did My Sweet Grandma Go? was published in 2016. She thrives on green tea, Tex-Mex, and all things turquoise.

Photograph © Bruno van der Kraan, used with permission