"God's Promised Are Sure!"

The anniversary of my mom's passing is tomorrow.  I used that as a "deadline" to finish writing this specific experience I had related to her passing.  For my family----

“God’s Promises are Sure!”

In the fall of 1981, my mom was diagnosed with congestive heart failure while on vacation in Portland, Oregon.  She had been struggling with her health over the prior couple of years, but it mostly was explained as allergies and a variety of lung infections and pneumonia.  She was only 47 years old and still had several kids at home including my two youngest brothers which were still in school.  It was unexpected and heartbreaking for all of us.

Over the next few years, her health continued to decline until many of the typical joys of life were difficult for her.  Even playing the piano or leading music was no longer something she could do except very briefly.  Fast forward to Thanksgiving of 1984, we had had a family fast in regard to a decision about whether my mom should apply to receive a heart transplant.  As a family, we all agreed that this was the right path to take.  Salt Lake near where we lived had just done some of their first few transplants, but all of us agreed with my mom’s doctor who suggested that she go to one of the best which at that time meant Stanford Hospital in the San Francisco Bay area.  She applied and was accepted as a patient.  That required her to move to Palo Alto, CA from her home in Amarillo, Texas, and always stay within an hour of the hospital.  She made the move there in May of 1985 and settled in for the wait.  At that time there was about an average of a 9 month wait.  We all made plans to spend some time with her.  Jessica and I went and spent two weeks in May with her and had plans to go again in the summer and then the fall and however long she had to wait.

At the same time, Gary was working on a project in Sweden, and he was able to have some great experiences in business trips to that pretty country. Earlier in the year, he had been invited to make an extended business trip to Sweden of six to eight weeks during the summer and Jessica and I were able to go with him.  I was so excited (Jessica was only two so didn’t really understand what was happening.)  I had only been out of the country once at that point in a trip to Canada with my family.  Six weeks in Sweden was a dream come true.  We got our passports and started putting in place the other things needed to leave the country for 6 weeks. I really wasn’t worried about my mom’s heart transplant because the waiting list of nine months made it seem like a pretty safe bet that it would be winter before she would get an heart transplant.

One day as I was driving in the car-thinking about my mom, the surgery, and our extended stay in Sweden, I had a calm feeling come over me and the reassurance that I would be there with my dad when my mom passed away.  This idea was something very important to my mom. She had expressed many times that she did not want to die at home, because she thought it would be too hard for my dad (he didn’t even like to smash spiders.) And her other wish was that I would be with Dad to help him when she did pass away. It wasn’t the most reassuring feeling in a way because I didn’t want to think of my mom passing away especially as she faced this major surgery.  However, it was a thought that came with a great deal of peace.  I didn’t worry about going to Sweden and we moved forward with our plans.

About 10 days before we were to leave, Gary called with the news that they had decided he did not need to go to Sweden to manage the project.  They had made good progress and just an additional trip later in the summer was probably all that was needed.  It was a disappointment, but life was busy anyway, so we just moved forward.  Gary told me that night that he was sure that my mom would be getting her heart transplant during the time we were scheduled to be in Sweden.  He said that is the only reason for the trip to have been changed.  I laughed because Mom had only been in California for about 6 weeks—she still had a long wait ahead.

It was almost exactly on the day we were to leave for Sweden that I got a call in the middle of the night

from my dad with the news that a heart had been found and that Mom would be going into surgery within a couple of hours.  She was between family member visits so a ward member there took her to the hospital.  Valerie, Jarom, Landi, Gary, Jessica and I all headed to San Francisco in our car and got there about 12 hours or so after her surgery.  She was still sedated, but the surgery had gone well and they commented that the heart was a perfect match.  My dad was already there, and we all spent a week together as she was in intensive care.  Gary was able to stay with us, because his calendar had been freed mostly for the Sweden trip which had been cancelled.  It was great to be there with my mom and dad at that important time in all of our lives.  Stanford actually did four transplants in just a few days—a very unusual occurrence and a blessing to all four of those patients and their families.

Mom did well and within 3 months she was back in Texas.  She recovered well and was able to return to a more normal life.

Fast forward 9 ½years……..and all of our lives had moved forward.  Some of my siblings got married, grandchildren were added to the family, our family moved to Hong Kong and then to Plano, Texas—and my mom was able to participate fully in all of those things.  She and Dad were even able to make a trip out to Hong Kong and experience a bit of life there as well. So many great memories and just plain living went on.

My brother, Rick's graduation in 1992

My kids remember Mom reading them books and 
she loved pigs!

Mom and Dad wearing the 1994 Reunion Shirts

My youngest brother Scott started attending University of Texas

A trip to visit us in Hong Kong in 1988

In 1994, we had a family reunion in Plano with the whole Giberson family. 

Later that fall, Mom and Dad celebrated their 40^th wedding anniversary with a long-anticipated trip to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival and a trip on the historic Cumbres & Toltec Railroad.  At Christmas time, they spent time with Valerie’s family who had a new baby. While there, Lance received notification that they were being transferred to Israel in the spring for a 2-year assignment. Mom was so excited for them and was looking forward to making a trip to see them while there. Despite these highlight moments, Mom was beginning to have some problems related to some side effects of the anti-rejection medications.  Specifically, her skin was becoming more and more brittle and was taking longer and longer to heal when bumped or scratched. She was getting more tired than in the past, which was another frustration.

On Thursday, February 2, 1995, she tripped when leaving a restaurant after lunch with friends which caused a large gash on her leg.  Because of the skin issues, she was hospitalized so her leg could receive treatment and care to start the healing process.  It seemed at first to be a routine matter.  However, by Friday evening, she was starting to have some breathing problems.  Saturday morning, my dad called me to update me on her current condition.  Mostly, out of habit, I asked him if he wanted me to come to Amarillo (we lived in Plano at the time).  In all of the years of Mom’s illness whenever I had asked that, my dad had always said no…he had support around him, I had my own life to take care..etc.  This time, without hesitation, he said, Yes, can you come?” I hung up and called the airlines to book a ticket that evening to Amarillo. No problem getting a ticket. I let my dad know when I would be arriving, and then did the typical things to get ready to leave my house for a few days and leaving Gary in charge of our four kids, age 3 to 11.

I checked in at the arrival desk (old times before online check in), got a seat assignment and proceeded to the gate.  When I got to the gate, it was pretty packed with people waiting for the flight…many on a long standby list which was posted on the monitor. Some on standby were talking near me about how they had been trying to get tickets to this flight for a week with no luck.  They couldn’t believe so many people wanted to go to Amarillo on a Saturday evening.  That was my tender mercy—to be holding a ticket and seat assignment for a ticket I purchased eight hours earlier on what was an overbooked flight.

When I arrived, Robert Barton (he will always be Bishop Barton to me) picked me up from the airport and told me that my mom’s heart had stopped twice but had been restarted.  That is why my dad had not come to get me.  It was the moment where I knew that it was good that I was in Amarillo.

Bob dropped me off at the hospital and I went into my Mom’s room.  I think that Robin came to the airport to pick me up while Dad was at the hospital.  Mom was not awake or perhaps not even conscious at that point.  We stayed a bit and then Dad and I headed home to their house to get some sleep.

About 2:30 a.m., the hospital called and suggested that we return to the hospital as Mom was not doing well.  Dad and I dressed quickly and headed there.  As we were walking down the hallway, hospital staff stopped us and pulled us into a private room where they told us that mom had passed away. In the middle of that moment, as I held my Dad in my arms and we both cried—I had an overwhelming feeling of peace and remembering—I had been promised that I would be there with my dad when my Mom passed away.  I had not thought about that promise for many years.  I thought it applied to that moment in time in 1985 and the heart transplant and the Sweden trip. But it was fulfilled 9 ½ years later in the hospital in Amarillo, Texas.

Truly, God’s promises are sure…now and forever! And I will forever be grateful that my mom’s wish was also granted—that she passed away in the hospital and that I was with my dad.  We are or will not be so blessed to get our wishes on such matters—but a sweet blessing for my mom and for me!