Written on November 2, 2009

"I got to go. My dad is calling me."

Funny how the significance of that statement took me ten years to realize its truth. Ten years ago tonight, those were the last words that my mom had spoken to my dad. Immediately after, her heart stopped, and she breathed her last breath. The medical staff tried to revive her, but failed. Dead from sepsis, brought on by gangrene, a complication of her diabetes.

I had arrived well after that moment. There was her body. A tube still protruding from her mouth. One less leg than I had last seen her when she was alive. Quite a different image of the woman I knew for my 29 years.

My mom had grown up in a large, poor family. Her mother was an abusive alcoholic. Her dad, the only one who had shown her love. He was golden gloves boxer, and he taught her how to fight. He had died when she was 18, and her aunt took over raising her at that point. Her hobby as a teen, she had told me, was beating up Pagan motorcycle gang members. She was tough, a warrior, and she expected her son to be tough too.

She had succeeded in that. For me to even admit that I'm in pain, it would be considered crippling for most people. Even after that time I was hit by a car at 16, I had walked home, pushing my mangled bike for blocks while bleeding to get back home. I have chronic pain that most people don't know I have. I just deal with it, forgetting it's there most of the time.

However, this isn't about me. It's not even about my mom on the 10th anniversary of her going home. You see, I was driving home today and had an epiphany about my mom's final words. When it hit me, I couldn't stop crying. Yes, I do miss her, and maybe that is part of the reason, but most of it was joy. It was like the meaning of those words were hidden from me for ten years. Then it hit me at that moment. The words spoken, and the truth behind them. Put together as one for the first time. Can you see the meaning?

For ten years I had gone on thinking that she was talking about her dad. I thought it was her dad, who had loved her as his child, who was calling her. Then I thought about it, and it became clear. How many times have we said, "Our Father, who art in Heaven?" The word that had been used by Jesus was aba or abba, depending on how you want to spell it. It's a more affectionate term, like daddy.

Jesus had mended that relationship between us and our Heavenly Father. We can call Him "Dad" now through Jesus. He was calling her home. Personally. Yes, PERSONALLY. We can have this personal relationship with God now. There it was; put before me. So obvious now. God in the flesh came down from Heaven to sacrifice Himself for us. It's not us as a collective. It's us as individuals, by name.

"I got to go, my dad is calling me."

Someday, He wants to call us all home, to be with Him, to be loved by Him, for eternity.

Amen (So be it!)