Who Is My Brother?

By Deb Moken

 There’s no denying that Jesus was a one-man revolution.  To dig into his teachings is like mining for gold or precious gems.  I stumbled on one such gem this week in Matthew 5.  A familiar portion of His inaugural message:

21Ye have heard that it was said unto them of the old time, Thou shalt not kill: for whosoever killeth shall be culpable of judgment. 22 But I say unto you, whosoever is angry with his brother unadvisedly, shall be culpable of judgment. And whosoever saith unto his brother, Raca, shall be worthy to be punished by the Council. And whosoever shall say, Fool, shall be worthy to be punished with hell fire.  (GNV)

 Admittedly, I was tempted, as is so often the case, to tell myself that because I know what it says I understand what it means.  Maybe not so much.

     “Who’s your brother?”

     “Um, well… ah…. I know that means everybody.  ‘Brother’ is synonymous with all humanity.”  

     “Really?”

     “Well, I think so.”

     “Making bold strokes with a broad brush.  Idealistic.  How about you reign it in a bit.”

     “Ok, I have 2 brothers: Rick and Ken.“

     “Oh, Deb.  Who. Is. Your, Brother?”

     “You Lord.  You are my Brother.”

     “Bingo!  Now, read it again with more specificity.”  

    If I am unjustifiably angry with you, Jesus, it’s because I am guilty of having pronounced, through short-sighted ignorance, a judgment.

     “Good.  Continue”

    If I think so little of you that your words, ways, and teachings are deemed worthless and of no significant value to me, I am guilty of accepting and giving worthless counsel.

     “Go on.”

 And if I believe you are a deceived deceiver, I am, myself deceived by the deception of hell itself.

Now, there’s some thoughts worth chewing on.  

 We are given a glimpse into what that looks like in Luke 22.    

 Peter is so angry with Jesus, he denies ever having known Him.

 Judas decided that  Jesus was a worthless waste of time and resources, so sells Him out for 30 pieces of silver to the…

Governing body who believed that He was a deceiver leading the ignorant masses down a deceptive path (away from their control), so they killed Him.  

    From where I sit, that seems to describe the state of society lately.  And it explains the process of its devolution.  Starts out by simply being ignorantly and unjustifiably angry with the Lord.  That paves the way to believing His ways are worthless and of no value to you or anyone else.  From there, it’s a short trip to swapping name-tags between the actual deceiver (satan) and The Way, The Truth, and The Life (Jesus).

    How do we find our way back?  Eph. 4 spells it out pretty clearly. And I think Paul knew what he was talking about, being one who was firmly ensconced in the anger-worthless-killer trap in his early years.  

 

Reunion

This morning a former constant-companion greeted my waking moments.  It was a tearful reunion. 

Several years ago we suffered an unexpected, abrupt separation rendering me confused and more than a little sad.  We first became acquainted in 1988.  She had so much to say, but no voice with which to speak or audience willing to listen.  I became her audience occasionally putting pen to paper attempting to give voice to her words. This forged  a mutually satisfying, collaborative partnership, which I assumed secured an unbreachable bond.  I was mistaken.  Something happened, I don’t know exactly what, but my heart had gone silent causing an acute, and I feared terminal, case of writer’s block.

 I can’t speak for other writers, I don’t know their process, but this has been mine: listen to what my heart wants to say.  The mind already knows what it thinks but the heart offers another perspective - neither are infallible, but when Mind and Heart work together it makes for a richer experience with a more satisfying outcome.  Heart brings the emotional perspective.  Heart is the place that has the ability to hear God, and conveys that communication in a way that Mind can understand.  Sometimes that’s just a bit more than Mind wants to deal with but when something is too important to ignore Heart insists on taking the helm. Hence this morning’s wake-up call.

My dad is dying.  He is, as I write this,  confined to a bed in the Hospice unit at Fort Meade Veterans Hospital.  A seizure last month has robbed him of what physical strength he had left.  Talking and eating are now enormous energy expenditures.  My mind hates everything about the situation.    And this morning I was jarred awake with what my heart had to say.

H:  “There’s one more lesson your dad wants to show you.”  

M:  Crap.  I’m pretty satisfied with the lessons already learned.

H:  “He is not.”  

M:  Crap. Don’t. Say. It.

H:  “He is going to show you how to die.”

M:  CRAP!  

H:   “What did he say with the look of sincerity he gave you yesterday?”

M:   Love.

H:   “And?”

M:   Appreciation.

H:   “And?”

M:   Trust.  Love, appreciation, and trust.

H:   “Ok.  What about love, appreciation and trust?”

M:   Principles to die by are worth living by as well.

H:  “Yep.  We’ll talk again soon.”

Thank you Dad.  Lesson received.  I love you.  Heaven is waiting to receive you.  Give Mom and Grandma my love when you see them.  We will be together soon.

3 gifts

Dressed for Success

By Deb Moken

A little, unsolicited advice before diving in.  Few things arrest and strangle the learning process as effectively as “I know”.  ”I know” is a  powerful thought-process-deactivation-switch.  Training yourself to not flip that “I know”  switch will insure a life more fascinating, rich, fulfilling and fun.

 Okay - that said, let’s dive into the ultra-familiar Prodigal Son Parable.  

Possessions, Appreciation, Identity, Authority and Purpose

 When the possession-driven son returns, humbled and humiliated, broke and broken the Father presented him with three gifts and throws a party.  That celebration torqued the other brother off; showing him to be a praise and appreciation driven individual. I think most folks fall into one of these two motivational categories: possessions or appreciation.  But I think the father’s three overlooked and undervalued gifts represent the best he had to offer both sons all along.    

 The robe represents a new identity -  Like a high school letterman’s jacket, it provides immediate
recognition of the wearer's affiliation.  The robe wearer, having been rescued out of the kingdom of darkness, is now identified as being the Righteousness* of God in Christ Jesus. 

  

2000 year old signet ring

 The ring represents authority -  In Biblical times, a signet ring gave the wearer the authority of the one whose signet it bore.  Think power-of-attorney.  The ring gives the wearer legal authority to represent and speak on behalf of the Father and His Kingdom.   

The shoes represent purpose and mission -  A person needs decent footwear if they want to go somewhere.  How the sandal wearer chooses to fulfill that mission is unique but the mission itself remains constant.  It is to declare the good news of Christ’s Gospel. The news?  The evil, merciless, wicked, maniacal overlord has been overthrown, and humanity is free to choose a life  governed by the heavenly principles of forgiveness,  grace, love, and mercy.

 The Cross Changed Everything!

*Righteous means to be right with God. Because Christ Jesus paid the ransom, required by the enemy,  He legally satisfied the enemy's demand for our release:  the blood of a sinless human being.  

 

 

 

Are these the last days?

Previous blogs in this series:

The Proof Is In The Pudding

Speculate and Manipulate

How To Know Who To Follow

It's been a struggle to figure out how to wrap up this series, knowing that what I have to say is not very popular, especially now, when so many are declaring that we are teetering on the brink of annihilation based on their belief in a widely held eschatological interpretation of John's Revelation of Jesus Christ; that it is a prophetic glimpse into the end times a.k.a. eschatology.

Question: how to study something that has yet to materialize?  

Answer: it's not possible.  

Conclusion: at best, you'll collect a pile of speculative interpretations. At worst, when those interpretations are promoted as fact, embraced as truth, and become firmly ensconced in receptive hearts the faithful embracers are rewarded with emptiness, hopelessness and fear.  Quite possibly a false teaching conceived and/or promoted by false teachers.

Case(s) In Point

Look into the lives of John Calvin (silenced a peer by burning him at the stake), Cyrus Scofield (the inspiration for the opening paragraph in How To Know Who To Follow, and John Nelson Darby is the central character rising out of my search into Holy Spirit's waking statement, "Hijacked Eschatology". 

These three men have had an enormous influence on the church.  Not a healthy, life-giving influence but one that has produced widespread despondency.  And that despondency seems to be multiplying in recent months with representatives of the church promoting the idea that what is written in the book of Revelation is being played out in today's headlines, proving, in their minds, that the dispensational interpretation conceived by Darby and promoted by Scofield must be true.  

But what if...

What if God had an enemy who knew the Word well enough to twist and pervert its meaning? An enemy who understood human nature well enough to manipulate and exploit it in order to undermine God's plan?

What if that enemy was okay with taking a century or two to set up his master plan?   What if that enemy knew his greatest weapon was the art of deception?  And that by simply twisting a few keys to unlock the mystery of John's Revelation, and whispered those key ideas to a few ambitious, pride motivated individuals placed in a few influential positions he could flood the unsuspecting church with his narrative, promoting his agenda with a repeat of the Garden's "Did God Really Say?" approach.  

The beauty of this plan would be that by using the words from the Bible, the Heirs of Salvation would be convinced that their belief is Biblical and opposing it would be either futile or defy God's plan. He  could lead them into destruction without a fight. 

Knowing the best way to predict the future is to create it, to accomplish this evil plan all that enemy would have to do is hijack eschatology.

A theory that is not too far-fetched is it?   

Is it true?  I don't know.  But hopefully I've sparked a healthy dose of scepticism for the idea that the Lord is returning in a few days for a cowering, despondent church.  And that spark might be fanned into a full on flame of your own investigative research.

How To Know Who To Follow

by Deb Moken

 

What if I told you that an unscrupulous, self-proclaimed ‘doctor’ of unknown/undeclared discipline, from the 1800's robbed the life savings’ from his unsuspecting victims by forging paperwork and signatures? And that this man was the driving force behind some of the most cherished doctrines embraced by evangelical Christians today? Or that some of the most defended doctrines were formulated and propagated by the maniacal and murderous of the 16th century?   

 Don’t worry. I won’t. Not because it’s false, but because it’s not the most effective method of producing actual changes in heart-held beliefs. Jesus would introduce new teachings by way of parable and encourage uprooting inaccurate or obsolete beliefs by asking uncomfortable questions.

 I’m not good at telling stories. But I do like to ask curiosity invoking questions hoping to initiate searches that lead to discoveries. Questions like:

    Whose teachings am I actually following?  

    Who was that guy (or gal) anyway?  

    If this person were alive today, would I go their church, buy their books or listen to their podcasts? 

    Were they known to be followers of Christ by their exhibition of love for one another? 

    Does believing this doctrine produce hope and peace, compassion and joy in my heart? 

    What effect does it appear to have in my life or the lives of others who’ve chosen to believe it?

 In Matthew 7:15-20 Jesus tells us to be on the lookout for false proclaimors of ‘truth’. If you don’t know them personally and are unable to determine the caliber of their character and sincerity (or reality) of their conversion, how can you weed out the good from the bad? The Lord instructed to check out their fruit; which are the doctrines and disciples their proclamations produce.  

 I’ve used the Lord’s method to recognize, in my own life, foul fruit. And where possible, have traced the teachings back to their ill-conceived origins. Sure enough, the discoveries made by upending a sacred cow or entrenched rock have given me all the impetus needed to erase those ideas from my world and theological views. Ideas that, I believe, were intentionally planted in the minds of the searching, watered by fear and sudo-certainty. Ideas that continue to produce bumper crops of unhealthy, impotent, and anti-christlike beliefs masquerading a truth.

Our generation doesn’t have the corner on malevolence.  Have you ever wondered who were the Jim Jones’, Vernon Howells, Charles Mansons, David Bergs and Ron Hubbards of previous centuries? Have any of  their ideas, interpretations, slants and theological grids tainted, infiltrated, and influenced the teachings we have come to believe today? Do their teachings hijack eschatology and undermine the Cross? If so, they have no place in our hearts or our pulpits. The Cross Changed Everything.

Speculate & Manipulate A Dangerous Combination

Speculate & Manipulate
A Dangerous Combination
by Deb Moken

Historically, we know that satan pays attention when God speaks and he speculates how that prophet declaration might play out. Then, based on that speculation, the enemy works to manipulate the outcome hoping to thwart God’s plan.

For Example:

In Eden God declared, “Her seed will crush your head.”  

His eschatological speculation:  One of her kids is going to destroy me. 

His attempt at manipulating the future: Kill her offspring. 

His tactic?  Provoke jealousy in Cain (who, as the oldest, quite possibly thought himself slated to be the Eternally-Lauded-Enemy-Head-Crusher as well.  

Satan succeeded in provoking Cain to murder his own brother, Abel, but he missed the truth of God’s prophetic declaration by a mile.

Fast forward a couple of centuries and God finds a man, with whom He could enter into a covenant, 

Abram.  From his family the world’s Redeemer would come. Satan’s eschatological speculation led to the attempted manipulation the bloodline hoping to derail the plan. His deceptive reasoning seemed to make sense to the humans involved. A little extramarital sex, some more jealousy, and things were looking mighty muddy. And to the enemy's ire, God continued to execute His plan in spite of the mud.

Then there were Joseph’s brothers (Abraham's great grandsons) who satan provoked to hatred. They originally thought it’d be good to murder the kid, but decided to make some money in the process by selling him into slavery.

And let's not forget the two rulers satan inspired to murder the babies of Abraham's posterity:  Pharaoh in Egypt and Herod in Bethlehem. 

4,000 years of recorded history of God interacting and making covenants with His creation.  We are shown how the enemy attempted to thwart God’s plan, and how humans, both wittingly and unwittingly fell into satan’s alternate/ulterior agenda.  FOUR. THOUSAND. YEARS.  

 And then came The Cross!

God won.  I like to remind myself that God, using only dirt (humans having been formed from it), air (He breathed into us life), and a promise (the woman’s seed is going to crush your head) crafted His magnificent plan to redeem humanity from the prison-state referred to as the law of sin and death. That plan was so beyond the enemy’s realm of comprehension. So certain, he was, that every possible loop-hole had been closed, making his ransom demands completely unattainable; the blood of a sinless man. God’s plan succeeded.  

It’s important to recognize that this was a legal issue, fought, argued, and won in the universe’s highest court.  The throne of God.  

Jesus won.  Not going to win.  Not, "I’ve read the end of the book and we win”. JESUS WON! Past tense. It may seem like simple semantics, but it’s not.  It’s one of the enemy’s tactical maneuvers to deceive the Free into believing there’s another appeal in process.  There is not.  That is what I believe the Book of Revelation is all about.  That is why the Cross didn't postpone everything.  The Cross Changed everything!  

Again, I hope you’ll join me as I explore and expose some of the tactics the enemy has used to keep the facts of his case hidden.  It’s some fascinating stuff.  ‘Till next time, just remember, The Cross Changed Everything!  

The Proof Is In The Pudding

The Proof Is In The Pudding

by Deb Moken

“Wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”That quote, from Jesus, has been crucial in my navigation through the past 20 years.  After a few decades under the proverbial belt of doctrinal teachings, I had to do some serious weeding.  To determine what could stay and what had to go in my heart’s collection of beliefs was to simply answer the questions, “What has this particular doctrine or belief brought into my life?”, “Does it produce any fruit that reproduced God’s wisdom?” If not I did my best to drop it like a hot rock.  

Warning!  What follows may be distressing to many of my readers.  I ask, if you choose to continue, that you do so with an open mind. If you’ve read my book, What If The Cross Changed Everything?, you already know my interpretation of John’s Revelation of Jesus Christ aka The Book of Revelation, is different than the very popular one currently en vogue. My intent was to offer an alternative interpretation based on a Biblical foundation and historical reference, void of speculation and the sensational.

Hijacked  

It’s a simple concept.  A vehicle, carrying passengers, is overtaken by a person or group with a different purpose or destination.  The unwitting passengers are forced into the hijacker’s plan. Travelers become trapped.

Hijackers have an agenda. They might simply want the vehicle. They might be looking for a large audience to hear their message and believe a high-profile hijacking will provide a world-wide platform. Or they might want valuable collateral to leverage a ransom. Regardless of the motive, the hijacked are at an enormous disadvantage.  They are powerless, unprepared and taken completely off-guard.

Eschatology

Eschatology is a less familiar term which means the study of end-times. Forgive me for pointing out the obvious here, but isn’t it impossible to study something that has yet to exist? Perhaps a more accurate definition would be the theoretical speculation based on Biblical references presumed to be referencing future events.

Putting It Together

There we were cruising along in the vehicle of life and WHAM, it feels like we were hijacked by 2020. The world, as we knew it, appears to have gone completely insane. And the Christian Church seems to have been, in spite of the well-known, widely-held, vehemently-espoused doctrines built on the foundation of dispensationalism*, like victims of a hijacking, appear powerless, unprepared and taken completely off-guard; in spite of the head-lines that seem to fall in near perfect alignment with the dispensational interpretation of The Book of Revelation. 

What's Up With That?

I asked the Lord for insight and He gave me a two word answer, “Hijacked eschatology.”

Stay tuned… this is some empowering, exciting, faith building, Christ honoring, God blessing stuff!

*The Left Behind series is based on the dispensation doctrine.  

Gratitude

Thank you for the food we eat,

Thank you for your word so sweet

Thank you for the birds that sing,

Thank you God for everything.  Amen

Philippians 4:8-9

Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].The things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things [in daily life], and the God [who is the source] of peace and well-being will be with you. (AMP)

It’s widely accepted that stress is among the worst emotions for health and well-being.  Stress has been singled out as the underlying culprit in everything from heart-disease to hemorrhoids and nearly everything in between.  Fear, guilt, shame, worry, and anxiety  are just a few of the negative emotions that feed the stress response. Interesting to note that these are emotions God’s word encourages us to avoid, or the Cross of Christ has made the way for us to be free of.

What about the health effects of positive emotions?  A recent internet search for ‘gratitude and digestion’ brought up nearly half a million hits.  I read half a dozen of them; enough to reinforce my long-held belief in the importance of emotions when it comes to health in general and digestion in particular.

A few years ago, the Smithsonian magazine had an article by a photographer who captured tears and photographed them under a high powered microscope.  Tears of joy and happiness look very different than tears of grief and onions.  The emotions we experience change our body’s chemistry.  Tears reflect those changes.  Naturally occurring changes in body chemistry is undeniably powerful, and unconsciously manipulated by heart-held beliefs and the thoughts we ponder.

Drugs are synthesized attempts at duplicating the body’s natural ability to produce these powerful responses.

The chemicals released in our bodies when we are feeling grateful produce the optimum environment for healthy digestion, leading to healthy lives.  Fear, shame, and guilt are not the emotions to be laboring under when you eat.  Starting today, if you aren’t already in the habit, begin to be mindful of things you are grateful for, including but not limited to, what’s on the fork in front of you.  

Several years ago I stumbled on the frozen water crystal experiments of Dr. Masaru Emoto. He took water, that had been exposed to different emotionally charged environments or words, froze it, then photographed the frozen results.  If you have 3 or 4 minutes, check this out:
Water crystal video   Keep in mind that the human brain and heart are about 73% water, and suddenly Proverbs 18:21, The power of life and death are in the tongue, isn't so hard to figure out.

Our eleven-year-old grandson broke his leg skiing a couple weeks ago.  He told me about the horrible pain, laying in the snow, waiting for ski patrol and the people who stopped to help.  When I asked  what he felt when they stopped, without hesitation, he said, "Grateful! Unimaginably grateful!"  And I knew that flood of gratitude played a major role in his broken body that day; and will continue its miracle-work every time that memory is replayed and its power is released.

Gratitude, is a powerful force, let's release it!  Thank you for the food we eat, thank you for your word so sweet. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you Lord for everything! Amen

Say What?

All great revelations were, at one point, revolutionary. After a couple of years (decades or millennia) they are relegated to common-place- and this-is-how-it’s-always-been status. Sad really.

Twenty-five years ago Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages was one such revelation. Thankfully, in many circles, it hasn’t lost its luster, and the truths explained on its pages are still helping mend relationships and build bridges of deeper understanding. 

With Valentines Day just around the corner, there’s a good chance you wont find the time to read this great book to figure out the best way to express your love to the loved ones in your life—so here’s the condensed version:

1. Words of affirmation 

“Having you in my life is the greatest...”

“You are fantastic.”

“I really appreciate that you...” 

2. Spending quality time together

“I’m going to ______, care to join me?”

“Let’s get together for ______.”

3.  Gifts

“I saw this and thought of you.”

 “It’s nothing fancy but I made this for you.”

“I remember you saying how much you liked it when you came to my house, so here, it’s yours.”

4.  Kind acts of service

“I’ll watch the kids so you can...”

 “I would love to help you ....”

 “Here’s a meal, I know how busy you’ve been lately...”

5.  Physical touch

Holding hands, touching a shoulder, a hug.

A word of caution, there’s a really good chance your native love language is different than that of the person you want to bless. There’s a good chance you are going to feel awkward, just like I feel every time I say, ‘gracious’ at a Mexican restaurant. Maybe so awkward that you abandon the idea altogether. Don’t! Just stick with it.

Love’s expression isn’t about you. It’s about the other person, (adults and children alike). It’s not important that you know you love them. It’s important that they know it. And the easiest way to communicate that is in their language. And just like the Tijuana taxi driver who drove me to the airport in San Diego back in 2003, he knew I was linguistically challenged, but that didn’t lessen his appreciation of my efforts to navigate the verb tenses and sentence structures of his native tongue. Your loved one will appreciate your efforts as well.

If you’re not sure what your loved one’s language preference is, just look back over their life and recall what they’ve done in their attempts to show you love and appreciation. Or, you can just ask what it is that you can do or give them that would make them feel loved. And whatever they say, do not demean it. You will belittle their request for a hug, or help by declaring it insignificant and then trumping their request with something more in tune to what speaks “I love you” in your preferred language. When a hug, a hand, or an hour of solitude is what they want, don’t insult them with a box of chocolates. If they say flowers or wool socks, don’t belittle it by throwing a party with 50 of their closest friends.

Love is never about self. Authentic love is always about someone else.

There's no going back

How many times had I heard someone say about a missions experience, “You need to go at least once. It will change you forever,”? In 1999 I took the challenge, hopped on a plane - passport in hand – and prepared for the promised transformation. I'd expected the change to come by way of witnessing unimaginable poverty and suffering; delivered in the form of shock so profound it would propel me into higher levels of compassion. I braced for the jolt.  It never came. Nonetheless I was changed as promised.  It just didn't come by observing a country's poverty.   

The world-rocking began almost imperceptibly with a question.  “Are your beliefs rooted in Christ or  culture?” Had I been duped into thinking my own hodge-podge of mingled truth with tainted teachings processed through a grid of limited perspective resulted in some worthless doctrines and a  less-than-powerful theology?  Yikes! 

As difficult as that realization was to face, I’m grateful for it's discovery!

Walk with me through the process of exposing one of those limiting beliefs.

Somewhere along life's way I had fashioned a belief that, in essence said,  'if you don’t read your Bible everyday you are a lazy ingrate who has no right to expect God to do anything for you. You aren't willing to bother with the bare minimum of reading His Word'.  Having taken that idea to heart had turned my adoption into a performance game. It was that trip to Asia that started the questioning and of that belief's validity. One question led to a dozen.

What of the billions of people who don’t have 14 translations of the scripture piled up on their nightstand? 

Or, of those who might have access but because of their gender, financial or physical limitations,  are denied the education necessary to accomplish the requirement of daily Word consumption? 

Or what of those who, by some unfortunate reason, were incapable of learning to read? 

My heart’s cry became, "God, how do You communicate with that person? How do You make Yourself known the them? I want to know that God, rather than the one who is limited by how well I perform the duties deemed - by forces I didn’t know -necessary to qualify for an audience and your grace." I sensed His smile at the challenge, and He’s been revealing Himself since. 

I traveled half way around the world and back to realize that the greatest mission field in need of  the Gospel was my own heart.  And in the spirit of full disclosure, there wasn’t much space in there for His Truth. My heart had become a repository of have tos, got tos, need tos, and supposed tos, that were all stuck together with a lethal combination of  shame and fear. 

My heart’s capacity to believe had become so crammed with this sort of thinking that God had been relegated to somewhere between my heart’s foyer and its front porch. And the Lord doesn’t clear space for Himself in the human heart.  Space clearing is our responsibility. 

No, this isn't my desk - just a picture I found online at marriannemcdonalddotnet closet therapy.

Since I started examining my beliefs  keeping those based on truth and surrendering those I recognize as based on something less, like culture,  or personal preference, or fear, or traditions.  Jesus said it this way in Mark 7:13 "Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."  NIV

The Lord doesn’t live on the front porch anymore.

The process has left me forever changed, and yes, it all began with a whispered question while I walked on the streets in another country.

What'd we do before tacos?

Seventeen days ago we watched Mom take her last breath.

Thirteen days ago we welcomed folks to participate in a service everyone dreads. Afterwards, we reminisced over ham and chicken salad sandwiches.

And every night since then, Mom - or more specifically planning her funeral - has been the subject of my dreams. Every morning I wake up and wonder why.  I wonder if others have experienced this phenomenon. I wonder if it is what the last 4 years have been like for her. Because it was four years ago this week, that we actually lost our mom.

 

She had a fairly routine surgery, but, as she said thousands of times since that day, “I just don’t feel like I ever woke up.” Which changed slightly as more memories were lost to, “I just need to wake up.”  

But she was as awake as she was capable of being. Somehow her dream world seemed to combine with her waking world, and decades old memories would collide with the current.  New information was incomprehensible and old information fractured into a thousand disconnected pieces.  With no short term memory she was left living with mostly now. Able to hold onto a thought train for maybe 30 seconds. Sometimes longer.  Sometimes less.  

For the past fifteen months she went to dialysis at least three days a week, maybe four. And after nearly every run she’d want to get tacos. She could remember that it was going to cost $5.38. But couldn’t remember that 30 seconds ago she’d asked, “what’d we do before tacos?”  If that was the train her thoughts were on, this question would be asked and answered countless times before getting home; where we would then have to convince her that the taco wrapper on the counter was, in fact, hers and Dad had not gone out to eat without her.

Looking back, we realize she was having trouble years before the general anesthesia finished the job. Becoming forgetful is normal right? Besides, what could we do about it?  I’ve since learned that “post operative cognitive dysfunction” is prevalent in the elderly, and most often seen when cognition is impaired prior to the surgical procedure. That a significant percentage of those experiencing it never recover. And that cardiac patients aren’t the only at-risk demographic.

I’ve spent the last four years saying goodbye to the lady who brought me into this world, (and played a major role in the person I am today) and working toward the goal of no regrets. I didn’t want our parting stained with my having said things I shouldn’t or leaving things unsaid that needed to be spoken. Tying up lose ends and giving credit where it’s due. Honoring her life and wishes by making the decisions I was entrusted to make.  The last four years afforded that opportunity.  

But I do have one regret. Not having spoken up in the oncologists office that October day in 2014.  

If I could do it again I would say, “Let’s wait on that lumpectomy. How about we schedule a mammogram in a couple months instead?”  “At 78 years old, just how much estrogen is this smaller than bb sized neoplasm going to have to feed on?”  I’m sure I would have made a few people mad, and been labeled an idiot… but those would have been small prices to pay to have had a different hand to play than the one POCD dealt her. Dealt us.

Maybe my dreams are pushing me to tell a story I never wanted to tell, in the hopes that others might avoid having one of there own.