in 1984 I received a call that my mother was dying in another city. I wanted to get there before to tell her goodbye. We were five hours away. She was 82 years old. But then our car broke down on the way, and we were stranded. Why was this happening? Was God in the midst of this? This is my story about what happened that day.
Everything is Going to be All Right
I don’t like to dwell on unhappy times or events in my life. Some days stand out more than others, good and bad. When I can see the good in the bad times, it makes it easier to reflect on that time.
This past week being the 15th anniversary of my mother’s death, I started thinking about the day she died. Death in a person’s life is going to come for sure some day. Mother was 82, and had lived a long productive and happy life for the most part. But you still don’t want to lose your mother. It can be a sad day.
But we all knew it was time, and she had told me six months before, “Lois, I am ready to go home. I am tired and my body is tired and I am ready. I am ready to be with Jesus. It’s just that I am worried about my children. (There were eight of us children!) How will they will cope with my death? I wonder how they will get along.”
I said, “Mother, we will all be okay. If you are ready to go home with Jesus, then I think everyone is ready to let you go. We will miss you so much, but we will see you again.”
Also, about 4 months before that, I had gone to a friend’s mother’s funeral. I was sitting in the funeral service at the church, and right in the middle of it, I distinctly heard a voice say, “Be prepared. Your mother will be the next to go”.
I started to cry, because I knew it was the Lord speaking to me. I began to prepare myself for what was to come.
That November, I went to San Antonio to pick Mother up to come have Thanksgiving with us. That Thanksgiving Day was memorable. We had a huge sleet storm and the ground was covered with ice for several days. My daughter Kristi and her husband, Bill and their children were there for dinner. I saw that Mother was very weak all those days, and moved very slowly and slept a lot. But that day, she insisted on getting bundled up to go outside with her trusty camera, to take pictures of her great-grandchildren slipping and sliding on the ice with makeshift sleds made of cardboard. I held onto her as she snapped away with the camera.
I am so grateful that she was with us on her last Thanksgiving. It was her last trip to N. Texas. She used to say, she loved to come visit us because where we lived seemed so different than South Texas, it seemed so much “higher”. She went to Colorado on vacation with us one time, and that was one fun experience for us and for her too. We really went to the “high places” then!
When I got the call that January day saying Mother was in the hospital and that she was not expected to live, I knew it was time. Quickly, Eddie and I packed and started on our 5-hour trip from Hurst, Texas to San Antonio, hoping we would get there in time to tell her goodbye.
All was well, until we reached the outskirts of Austin. The car broke down and we had to call a tow truck! We rode with the man in the cab of his truck to where he was towing it. I was crying. We had no idea where to take the car to be fixed. We got out at the place where there were cars everywhere in a large fenced in yard, and a big mean looking junkyard dog began to bark at us.
The two truck driver left us and drove off. There was one man on duty. He was an elderly looking black man who was sort of a night watchman. We used his phone at the little desk in back of the huge building to call several places to get the car fixed. It was about 5:30 PM and too late to take the car to a dealer or mechanic. We had to leave it there until Monday. It was Friday. We were stranded. What were we going to do?
We had just gone through Round Rock, and my niece Beverly and my sister Gerry going to San Antonio also. I hoped they were still in Round Rock. Maybe they had not left yet! I called them. They were still in Round Rock. They said they would come through Austin and pick us up. But it would be an hour or more.
But would Mother hang on until we got there? I prayed she would wait for us so we could tell her goodbye.
As the minutes ticked by, I began to get antsy. Anxious to get to the hospital. I sat in the car as Eddie chatted with the old black man back in the garage at his desk.
I was praying, “Lord why is this happening? Why are we at this place? You know how anxious I am to see Mother, before it is too late! I want to tell her goodbye and I love her. Now this! All I can do is sit here and wait. Why?”
I raised my head and stared at Eddie and the old man. Hmmm, was this man the reason? I heard, “Go talk to him”.
I got out of the car, and walked back into the garage where the two were talking. We talked a bit, and then Eddie went up to the street to watch for Beverly.
As the old man and I chatted, he began to talk about his children, who were all grown, but he seemed so sad, and when I asked about his wife, his eyes got sadder-looking.
He said, “I don’t have a wife. Well, I do, but we aren’t together any more”.
When I asked him what he meant, he began to tell me a story. Several years ago, after 25 years of marriage, he discovered his wife was having an affair and that it had been going on for 15 years! It broke his heart. They had been separated or divorced since then. But he had never forgiven her. He was still hurt and angry. I could tell he was heartbroken and bitter and lonely.
My heart went out to him. I asked him if he wanted to forgive her. He said he did, but didn’t know how. I asked him if he had a relationship with God.
We talked a little more and he wanted to accept Jesus in his life, which he had never done. I knew then that this was why this all had happened. I called Eddie over and told him that the old man wanted prayer. So Eddie led him in the prayer of salvation and as he did so, the old man began to weep.
As he went through forgiveness toward his wife and asking God to forgive him for his sins, which included the hatred and rage and anger he had toward his wife, the old man broke down and cried his heart out. He was beaming and happy and excited when all this was finally over.
When Beverly finally arrived, and I turned to go, the old man hugged me so hard, and said, “Thank you, thank you. You don’t know how much you have helped me. And I thank God He sent you here today.”
We got in the van with our family and headed to San Antonio. I had a peace in my heart, because I knew everything was going to be all right.
When we got to the hospital, we opened the door to Mother’s room. I was amazed. The room was full of people! The scene was not one of death and darkness. Mother lay in the hospital bed, with her eyes closed. There were a few family members gathered around the bed, holding her hand and talking softly to her. But there were more family gathered in the room, a big bucket of Fried Chicken on the table as they ate and laughed and talked together. There were children laughing and talking and playing in the room. Once in a while one of the children would go up to the bed, and say "Grandma I love you".The TV was turned on loudly which no one was watching or even paying attention to.
This was a family reunion. Children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren were all gathered together to tell Bertie Lee Zook goodbye. She was where she wanted to be, surrounded by her family, all having a good time together, loving each other. She wasn’t worried any more about her children, because she knew they were going to be all right.
I walked over to the bed, and leaned down and said softly, “Mother, it’s Lois. I’m here. Can you hear me?”
She opened her eyes, and smiled and said, “Yes, I’m so glad you are here.”
There was a phone call for her; it was her granddaughter Kristi, our daughter, calling to say she loved her. She talked to her for a minute. She knew who Kristi was and said she loved her too. Others who lived far away were calling on the phone to tell her they loved her. Each time she would smile and talk softly.
We all got to say goodbye, all those from Round Rock who had saved Eddie and me from being stranded, and got there in time to see her, as we hugged her and kissed her and told her we loved her.
Slowly the family began to go home, as she lingered on into the night. It was the four sisters, her four daughters who stayed by her side to the end. The next few hours we sat quietly by her bedside and prayed and sang praises and hymns together; her favorite, “Surely the Presence of the Lord is in This Place”, plus “The Old Rugged Cross” and “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder”, among others. It was a sweet time with Mother and the Lord.
Slowly in the early morning hours, she slipped away and the time had come. She went home to be with Jesus. Now it was time to celebrate.
I look back on that day, and it was one of the saddest and the happiest days of my life. God was right. He had told me things that were to come, and showed me how He was in all these things, even the bad things, and I trusted Him and knew everything was going to be all right. And it was!
For a time, I perched myself on a flat rock, comparing my life with the Guyandotte River. Just as its tributaries replenish it daily, changing it in some small—sometimes great—degree, so have the day-to-day occurrences of life changed me. Like the ri
We Will Stone Him is a raw, unfiltered trauma memoir about surviving childhood abuse, emotional manipulation, and the lifelong wounds that follow. This true story marks the beginning of the Rising From The Ashes Trilogy, John Gambacorta and his survi
For a time, I perched myself on a flat rock, comparing my life with the Guyandotte River. Just as its tributaries replenish it daily, changing it in some small—sometimes great—degree, so have the day-to-day occurrences of life changed me. Like the ri
Everything is Going to be All Right
