Thirteen years ago Russ’ Mom got a diagnosis of cancer, and lived with it bravely, until it got the best of her. Friday morning at 4 am, in Hospice Care and heavily medicated against the pain and nausea that had become far too common these last years, she breathed her last. Russ was with her at the time, and reports there did not appear to be any pain at that moment. She just…stopped…breathing.
She moved from this world to the next, taking nothing with her but a lifetime of memories, and the love of a large family and many friends.
Marianne was not an extraordinary woman—except that she WAS extraordinary, in the way that matters most, in the everyday way of simply living life and enjoying those things that God has put on earth for us to enjoy. Her biggest joy was obviously her family, and she was fortunate enough to have them all close, her entire life, spending over fifty five years married to her college sweetheart, and having all three children and six grandchildren never more than a twenty minute drive away. She got to see all her children married, and four of those six grandchildren graduate from high school.
She also got to see those grandchildren participating and excelling in various community events and sports over the last fifteen years or so. And as any true Southern gentlewoman, oh, how she did love her sports! Especially Alabama football, though she was known to sit glued to the TV for basketball and baseball as well.
She loved keeping a garden in the back of her house, sitting among the flowers with her little doggie, Sugar, feeding and watching the hummingbirds. She loved reading, especially biographies, and watching Dancing With The Stars. She was our Chief Cat-Sitter, and the only person whom, upon meeting both Boogie and Squee, fussed over how pretty Squee was. He apparently understood and appreciated her attentions, lavishing her with cat hugs, rather than hiding, as he did with all other visitors.
She also loved cooking (again, I say—“like any good Southern gentlewoman”) and was famous for her potato salad, chicken and dressing, corn muffins, and peach cobbler made with freshly picked peaches from Chilton County every June. Even though we may try to imitate her recipes in the future—adding “just enough” of this, and “a cup and half of that…or maybe a little more if you need it,” since she could never exactly explain how she did it, she just did what “felt right”—still, I don’t know if we’ll ever again taste these foods at their very best.
Marianne went to church and Sunday School, participating in lots of church events. She was the kind of Christian that did not clobber you over the head with her faith—she simply lived her faith, and it rubbed off on you, made you wish that you too could find that same magic where God is not some Great Presence with Whom you struggle to connect—God is simply there, so naturally a part of everything that to keep talking about Him too much would seem just as silly as constantly walking around exclaiming, “Oh, I’m so very glad there is air to breath!”
I believe Marianne was a Christian in the truest sense of the word, and that she is now in Heaven with Jesus. Free of pain and nausea, yes…but even better: with Jesus, saving a place at the table for the rest of us.
When she came to the last couple of weeks of her life and it became evident that this time there was not going to be a reprieve of her symptoms, I prayed for a miracle, that God would miraculously heal her of all cancer and all suffering. After all, “You do not have, because you do not ask,” right? (James 4:2). So, step one: I asked.
And there was no harm in asking, because when it came right down to it, I realized that in the end, I did, in fact, get a miracle. Only it was not the miracle I was expecting.
Sure it would have been dramatic if out of the blue, miraculously, Marianne had risen from her bed completely healed. Certainly something like that would have given glory to God! But when I went to Hospice and saw her lying there, gasping for breath, 
waiting for the end, it suddenly occurred to me that a miracle was indeed about to occur: not the selfish miracle I had been requesting, a bit more time for us to enjoy her company here on earth—but a bigger and better miracle, the common, everyday miracle where God lifts the veil between Heaven and Earth and says, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master.”
That we live at all is a miracle. That God lives, and loves us, and takes us to be with Him, is the biggest miracle of all. That we can have peace in knowing that the people we love are not really “gone,” they have just moved on, and that we will see them again someday: THAT’S the miracle.
It was a pleasure knowing Marianne, even for a short time. She’s left her mark on every life she’s touched, and I’m sure we will all talk of her and remember her with smiles, once our own sadness passes.
It was an inspiration, to see how she continually won her battle with cancer, day after day, every day for thirteen years, bouncing back each time, up until the very end. Now her battles with cancer are over, the war has been won, and Eternity is her prize.
