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Be Still, My Soul, the Lord is on thy side.
One of my mother’s favorite hymns, one I played for her on the iPad next to her ear, as she lay unresponsive. I knew she was completely deaf without her hearing aids, but somehow, I also knew those hymns were being heard. There was a peace in her room, a quiet beyond the music. There was no doubt God was in the room before me.
I brought my mother, age 94 at the time, to my home from her home in Reno, where she had lived for 60 years. It was hard for her, and hard for me. I spent many, many months trying to make her comfortable, to fill in the gaps left by leaving her Red Hats and her church, bowling and Telephone Pioneers. In all that rush, all that busyness, I exhausted myself. And her. And did not take time to pray, to meditate, to even be. It was a chaotic fifteen months, one that became more so as she declined.
Until the last week, when Hospice came in and gave me time to breathe. To sit quietly. And know that she, and I, were not alone. As I sat with the songs playing, I prayed. For her not to be in pain. For her to find what she knew was waiting beyond the veil. To be at peace. I held her hand, told her about my day. What her great-grand-daughters were doing. What the weather (hot!) was like, how her cat was. I talked about things we had done, things that were beautiful and sometimes challenging. The cruise to Alaska, the trip to Disney World (she offered to get a wheel chair for me). But I wasn’t just filling the void, I was letting the Creator, the Holy Spirit, fill each of us. I laughed for both of us, I cried for me. I prayed for…
With a mighty rip of thunder, my mother moved on. It is quiet now. I honestly have filled my hours since her death with the mundane. I’m not sure why. But it is time, to find the quiet, to listen, to just be. I realize I have walled myself off from the world, from the Spirit, from letting go and letting God. To let my soul be still.
Sue Burkholder
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