The Red Prayer Book

My mom died seven years ago tomorrow. Five years before that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer, adeno carcinoma, to be precise. It returned with a vengeance.

After being told that she had about four weeks to live, she spent every minute she could surrounded by faithful friends. Mom would have me help her get her makeup on and fix her hair, every morning. Her friends never seemed to tire of coming to visit and she thrived on the laughter and reminiscing.

About two weeks before her death, Mom began seeing things. I walked into her bedroom and told her some friends were coming to visit. She told me that she thought I had put enough chairs around her room and could stop now. I told her that I hadn't put any chairs in her room and she asked, as she pointed, "Well what about all of these?" She also asked what the women in old fashioned dresses were whispering about, and why they were staring at her. She said they were dashing about in a hurry, and that there were men in top hats. I figured it was just the morphine.

A few days later, one of the ministers from our church came by to give her communion with her family. My husband, daughter and I each sat around her and we all took communion and prayed. When communion was finished, the three of us walked the minister to the door to say goodbye and I went back in Mom's room to sit with her. We talked for a few minutes and then she got a strange look on her face and pointed and said, "Oh look, someone left a red prayer book on the dining room table and we need to return it." I turned in the direction she was pointing, and saw that she was just pointing to her bedroom wall. I told her that she must be mistaken because she couldn't possibly see the dining room table, or the dining room for that matter, from her bed. We joked for a minute that it must've been those gossiping ladies and the men in the top hats that left the prayer book.

No one could have been more surprised to walk out of her bedroom, go around the corner to the dining room, and find a red prayer book on the dining room table! I immediately called the minister, so we could return the prayer book. When he returned to pick it up, I told him what had happened and he said that God had allowed Mom to have one foot in Heaven while she still had the other foot here with us. She was starting to get her glorified resurrection body. That’s why she could see through the wall. Mom died the next week.

There is not a day that goes by that I don't think of her and I will always consider that moment to be a very special gift from God. He not only was taking her home, He was allowing us to observe this incredible experience as a reassurance for each of us.

(The photo is dated 1947. Mom is 23 years old in this photo.)