For many people, music brings long-lost memories back to the surface in an instant. This was the case for me recently. Even though I hadn’t heard this song in over 20 years, the lyrics slipped through my lips as easily as they had when I was 13 years old. I smiled instinctively, then almost as suddenly, my smile faded as old feelings of grief washed over me. I stood frozen as I listened to the familiar words:
Every night I pray
I’ll have you here someday,
I’ll count the stars tonight
And hope with all my might,
And when I close my eyes
You’ll be right by my side.
This song is an introduction to my first love story. I know what you’re thinking. Isn’t 13 years old a little young for a love story? Not for me. See, this is a love story you’re not expecting.
It was three days after Christmas in 1996. I was visiting my older brother who lived a couple hours away with his wife and baby boy. I can’t remember any other details of my stay there except for this moment. It was a Sunday morning and we were all getting ready for church when the phone rang. My brother answered it and his face instantly grew pale. He hung up 10 seconds later.
“That was dad. Mom is at the hospital. She had a stroke.”
I smiled. Yes, you read that right. This is humiliating for me to admit, but I remember it vividly. I smiled. And only recently did I learn that smiling is actually a coping mechanism. Weird, I know. I promise I wasn’t happy about it. But my smile quickly faded as I became more confused. I didn’t even know what a stroke was.
The next thing I knew, we were all driving up north to the hospital. Hesitantly, I entered the hospital room and saw my mom. I walked over to her and said hi. She muttered something to me using half of her mouth.
“What?” I asked.
“You. Need. To. Go. To. Church,” she slowly slurred.
Classic Mom. I looked at her like she was crazy. “I’m not going to church,” I demanded.
You often hear about people young and old suffering from strokes. Sometimes they are called mini-strokes. And they are back to normal in days or maybe weeks. My mom didn’t suffer one of those. It was major. She spent an entire month in that hospital bed, and months after that learning how to walk while literally half of her body refused to respond.
As I mentioned, this happened three days after Christmas. I remember getting my very first CD that Christmas. Best album ever. It was the soundtrack to That Thing You Do! (If you haven’t seen the movie, run to Amazon and buy it right now!) Here’s something you need to know about my mom. She was the epitome of a homemaker. She was always there for her 7 kids – cooking two hot breakfasts every day (one for the kids who left earlier, and one for the younger kids), creating organized chore charts, doing who knows how many loads of laundry, and essentially making our house a home. As I saw it, that stroke ripped away any comfort and security I had known in an instant. When I wasn’t visiting her in the hospital, I would curl up on her bed and smell her pillow while listening to my dad quietly weep. And these are the words that would play through my head:
Any waking hour it seems
I only have you in my dreams.
So every night I’ll pray
I’ll have you here one day,
I’ll count the stars tonight
And hope with all my might,
That when I close my eyes
You’ll be right by my side.
Helping my mom walk up and down stairs, chop vegetables, and put her shoes on became my new normal. Prior to her stroke, I would roll my eyes every time she asked me to do a chore or to fetch her something from the basement. But my attitude shifted the instant my world changed.
Charity is the pure love of Christ, and my relationship with my mom was the first time I truly experienced that love. She was my first love story and even better than the soundtrack to That Thing You Do is the gift I’ve had to love and serve her every day since.
One Response
This story brought tears to my eyes. Your mom is lucky to have you! So sorry you experienced this at such young age, but I’m glad you see the positive lessons you learned from it.