Mom and Pop
Early 1950's
This is a story I have told multiple times, but good stories are timeless, and this is a good story; it begins with a tree, a Dogwood sapling moved from the wild to my Mom and Pop's frontyard. Transplanting trees is risky business and God, in His kindness, allowed the young tree to survive the winter. But the kindness of God is sometimes hard to understand because He knows something we do not- He knows the end of the story.
While that Dogwood was taking root, my Mom was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, the most aggressive malignant brain tumor found in humans. One thing my Mom and Pop taught me in my youth is the power of prayer. Prayer changes things... prayer moves the heart of God. From the moment we received news of her diagnosis we began praying for healing, but healing did not come. As Mom's conditioned worsened, the little Dogwood was growing. Pop told me part of her morning routine was standing at the den window and watching the Dogwood. "I hope it blooms this year," she would say. And one day it did.
Pop helped my Mom walk slowly toward the little tree that morning. The cancer was draining her energy, and her vision. She never knew the flowers were made of silk, carefully and lovingly applied by my father's hands earlier that morning. Prayer changes things. Prayer moves the heart of God. Prayer also moves the hearts of men. In that simple act, my father showed me an aspect of loving a wife as Christ loves the Church. Thank you Pop for showing me how to honor my wife, for showing me that Mother's Day isn't just one day in the year.
On September 22, 1990, my Mom left the land of the dying and entered the Land of the Living. Pop tells me he thinks about her every day.
"Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself up for her." Ephesian 5:25
