Unexpected Grace in Unexpected Times

by Billie Meadors

One evening in 2011 as my daughter and grandson were leaving my house after a family dinner, our large, noisy crowd slowly paraded to the door as we said our goodbyes. As I grabbed the door knob, I realized there was a small, pitiful sound coming from behind the crowd. I turned to see my three-year-old granddaughter standing as if frozen in her tracks, her eyes filled with tears and her lip quivering as she squeaked, “Wait!…Wait!” It was a cry saying, “I didn’t expect this! I’m not ready!” You see, her cousin she adored was being taken home. One minute she was so happy to be with him, but suddenly everything changed.

Before long, I was that little girl. When my dad passed away on March 17, 2011, my sisters and I would never have guessed that our mom would be taken home almost exactly one month later.

My parents were married for 30 years and divorced for 25. They were neighbors as children. Daddy was an oilman with the presence of J.R. Ewing but had a heart as kind and gentle as Jesus. While he was out on the rig a week at a time, Mom and her five little girls did whatever it took to hold down the fort, including sawing down a fully grown tree (which landed on the family car). He received a hero’s welcome every time he came home. She received every rolled eye and snotty attitude girls can dish out. He wrapped his big arms around us often. She expected us to feel hugs with no arm-wrapping. We loved our mother, but in a “because she’s our mother” kind of way. We unabashedly favored daddy. She had a tough job.

When we were told they were divorcing, we weren’t surprised since they had been separated for ten years, but it broke our hearts as if we were. We were grown women with our own families by then. What would holidays and family celebrations look like for our children? During those ten years and until their deaths in 2011, we celebrated every occasion together as if there was no divorce—loving and laughing together.

That was unexpected grace.

When daddy was 81 and mom was 79, they both still drove to work every day, but not because they had to. One frosty morning, daddy slipped off his deck and broke his foot. Everything in his life changed. After surgery, dementia was immediately obvious. Because his mother had Alzheimer’s, we feared he would too. In her final years, she forgot all our names and eventually every word but would rock in her chair and repeat over and over the one word she never forgot: Jesus.

At first, daddy lived with one of my sisters but eventually had to be moved to a nursing home. For the next six years, we tag-teamed so that every day one of us was with him. Although his memory failed to the point he couldn’t remember words, he never forgot our names or the names of our children and grandchildren.

That was unexpected grace.

After receiving a call in the middle of a normal day that our daddy was dying, his five little girls ran to be at his bedside. What I thought I dreaded—watching my precious daddy die—became a privilege as he took his final breath, and we felt the presence of our Savior take daddy home.

That was unexpected grace.

Mom didn’t attend daddy’s funeral because she wasn’t feeling well. That night at 10 p.m. as I relished in a final visit with my California daughter, my phone rang. My sister from California who was staying with mom blurted, “Mom’s not breathing!” I blurted back, “Call 911!” and raced shoeless to her house. Her heart had stopped, and paramedics were pumping. We were shocked. Two months earlier, the cardiologist said her heart was as strong as a 50-year-old person.

When we got to the hospital, our family was put in a room to wait. Chaplains kindly came to comfort us, but I felt the need to leave the room and talk to my Heavenly Father. I found a dark waiting room, stared upward out the window and cried, “God PLEASE wait, not both of them! We’re not ready!” I may have even squeaked.

Mom was put into a hypothermic coma and we waited helplessly. The cardiologist explained that there is a distinct shape that the left ventricle takes in cases of true broken heart syndrome, and our mom’s sonogram showed that shape. “Surgery can’t fix it because we can’t fix her memory of his death again,” he said. A few days later, mom woke from the hypothermic state seemingly unscathed, except her mind was totally gone. Our mom had turned into “Finding Nemo’s Dory the Fish” in every way, including an adorable cheerfulness. In my mind, God was protecting her heart because after all, her parents both lived to ages just under 100, so we expected her to do the same. As long as she couldn’t remember Daddy died, her heart would keep beating!

Every morning before work, I had breakfast with her. As she improved, she was moved to a facility for skilled nursing where our breakfasts continued, filled with wonderful conversations I’ll always cherish. Two days before her release, she began asking me questions like, “Hon, did your dad move…like near a graveyard?” “Uh…OH mom! Look at that beautiful bird out the window!” And off we’d go away from a conversation I feared would stop her heart again.

At 3 a.m. on April 16, 2011, 27 days after daddy’s funeral, my phone rang. My sister choked out the words, “Mom died!” Although it broke our hearts that we weren’t given the privilege of being at mom’s bedside when Jesus took her home, I will always be grateful for those 27 days God gave us with our mom. In those days, mom hugged us and kissed us, making up for all the years she didn’t. We came to understand her, making up for all the years we didn’t.

That was unexpected grace.

When I think of mom’s first steps in Heaven, I envision her standing in a beautiful garden on a path lined with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, my nephew and brother-in-law…and my dad! But her eyes are fixed at the end of that path where Jesus stands. As she walks toward Him and passes daddy, she gives a cursory glance and says, “Oh…hi Bill,” but keeps her eyes on her true husband at the end of the path. That’s expected grace!

I have learned to watch for God’s grace in the everyday occurrences of life, and I’m thankful for His abundance in it. 

“Out of His fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given” (John 1:16).

Author Bio:  I’m just a woman on the journey of life who loves God and His word, family, friends, my golden retriever Noble, CRBC and iced, triple grande, two-pump, nonfat, no-whip, light-iced, white chocolate mochas. If I could have my way, I’d live in the mountains where drinking coffee by a stream is the closest thing to heaven I can imagine.