Trials only last for a while.

I've never been a melancholy person. I believe I can thank my mother for that.
I have bad days like everyone else but there is always the urging, pressing feeling to be thankful. I believe God gives us the ability to see things with hope because of His good and perfect gift. 

Just over a year ago I had my thyroid cancer removed, treatment followed and I'm still here. Almost two years ago my husband had bypass surgery after a stroke on both sides of his brain, five bypasses and his recovery is short of a miracle. He has a strong heart now and is pretty much doing what he pleases. 
God promises there are always blessings that come after the trials.
Romans 12:12 says "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." 

On a recent afternoon, from our screen porch I hear giggles of grandchildren playing in the house, Don is snoring on the couch. There's a light breeze on this warm spring day and I get a whiff of Mock Orange from the front yard. The smell as sweet as the memories of her. Mama brought that little Mock Orange from her huge shrub growing outside my childhood bedroom, it may have been ten inches tall. We chose a place to plant it together. Right here in the front where you smell it every time you come and go, she said. Done. 

As a child, early on spring mornings as the mock orange bloomed, my mother would quietly crank open the windows while I slept. It was the first thing I smelled when I woke. Those mornings she would likely have been up for hours before me, washing and putting clothes on the clothesline. (you know, the days before every home had a clothes dryer) Mama was very no nonsense and said, "I don't need a dryer, I have sunshine and fresh air." She loved the fluffy, fresh towels off the clothesline. My mothers self-sufficiency and low maintenance style must have been a relief to daddy. 
She wanted for little and needed only her family around her. She loved her flowers though. She didn't play when it came to flowers. Once daddy backed the lawn mower over something she had planted as the three children scattered to far corners of the yard. She walked out to view the damage and cried like a baby. Then she wiped her tears and gave daddy a look I can't even describe. Later she would say "we will plant them again, they will not bloom as long but they will bloom." My mother, the forever optimist. Blessings again. 

This photo taken early in their marriage, before children. Location unknown, likely the duplex they lived in when first married. 

Her last days were not as optimistic. Dementia had destroyed her reasoning ability and robbed her of most memories, lest a few. She knew her children (Small blessings) even though she could not always call us by name. Thankfully, my brothers and I were able to care for her at our homes until the last three months of her life. As I walked down the hall toward her, she would say "There's my baby girl." Later, maybe an hour or more, she would say "Leisa?" 

Yes mama, I'm right here. 

She had hostile days too, dementia does that. Irritability sometime, as do most all dementia patients. Most days anything could be solved with a piece of dark chocolate and an old episode of Perry Mason. 

One of my favorite things she would say while sick, "Donald, you are my favorite son-in-law" to which he would reply, "granny, I'm your only son-in-law" and she would laugh wildly. She certainly retained some semblance of a sense of humor. 

Her irises bloomed this year in my front yard, as did the forsythia the month before. The daylilies are readying for bloom now, the plum trees are looking fine and the sweet william have come back out. Wow, I thought they were gone. I never was able to retrieve any flocks from her house, I ordered some in her memory. I'll plant them right outside my screen porch in the backyard.
One of the last things she helped me choose when shopping, this sign.

Those last few years watching her suffer, often robbed me of my joy and hope until I could slip away and fall on my face before Him. It was very hard, definitely a trial but God's Holy Word promises nothing suffered is in vain for His children. 

Mama was delivered on the first day in May 2012. She no longer struggles with this earthly world as we do. Her hope is found, her Father beside her, her eyes resting on Jesus.
My Joy has returned too. I no longer dwell on the five plus years of the ravages of dementia. Instead I hear her laughter, I prepare her recipes, I view her inquisitive nature in some of the grandchildren, her tenacity for a job well done in my son, her smile shared on my daughters face and I tend her flowers. 

I rest these days in this passage from Hebrews 11:1. 

        Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not yet seen.  

She always told us "you have a choice every day. You can choose to dwell on your trials or live in the abundant grace, freely given." She truly faced her life that way. I am very grateful I had her and thankful I will see her again. 

Embrace life, live joyfully. Happy Mothers Day.