Month: August 2024

Years ago, my Aunt decided when she passed, she was leaving everything she owned to my brother and me. When her attorney asked if she was sure we could be trusted, she replied, “Well, I would hope so! Mike is a Pastor, and Missy (that’s me), she’s almost a missionary.” Over the years, she has told that story until my unofficial title – though official to her became “Almost a Missionary!” LOL

For those who do not know, I have been on an “almost a missionary” journey (of sorts) since the beginning of April. It was a journey of loving family and the person in front of me that day and accepting their love in return. It was a journey of celebrating little miracles. A journey of meeting some of the most extraordinary caregivers. It was also a journey of accepting hard circumstances as though they were normal and fighting back tears to leave joyful testimonies to whoever might be “listening.” It was a journey of praying through each step so I could cast off fear and be a voice declaring the beauty of Jesus and seeing Him face-to-face. I have been on the journey of helping first my mom recover from a fall and followed immediately by the journey of ushering her sister/my aunt to her heavenly home.

My aunt probably had a thousand children but no son or daughter of her own. After my uncle died and left her a widow, she always said she would live with me one day. It did not quite happen that way. But what did happen was every day of that journey I was … well, “almost a missionary.”

Sunday June 9, Aunt Freda went to the ER and then spent almost two months in the hospital, rehab, and skilled nursing facility. She would never live with me. But my brother, niece, and I would instead spend every day and most nights with her. Some called us crazy; some said we were going overboard when we wouldn’t leave her alone. Crazy, overboard, whatever. To us, it is just what family does. It was how we were raised – we were raised to be there. To be there to express what she could no longer say easily. To be there to ensure she was helped, cleaned, safe, and that she ate a little (oh yes, she also called me the “Taskmaster” because I took her eating under my watch very seriously). We were raised to be there to laugh with her, to reminisce with her and to wipe her tears. To be there to have that one all-night conversation before a stroke made her words so hard. To be there to read her devotions to her when she no longer could, to share my heart and hear hers regarding each day’s Scripture. She never got frustrated expressing her thoughts on Scripture.

It was, at times, the hardest thing I have ever done, but I would not trade one minute. I would not trade the opportunity to watch her go to Glory. It was the most beautiful and miraculous experience. I asked God every day to let me be there if she passed, so it was an answer to my prayer, and I will never let that answer go. It was, dare I say it, just as special as watching a child be born. There was something so wonderful in watching a peaceful transition knowing you helped birth it through much labor and waiting.

Can I share some of those last beautiful details?

One minute, I stood over my aunt, telling her I loved her with my face as close to hers as possible. Because her eyes were so cloudy, I was unsure if she could still see. I repeatedly looked into her eyes and said, “I love you” that day. I wanted to make sure she knew. The day before, she had said it repeatedly to me, looking through her cloudy eyes seemingly to make sure I knew it.

She then took one last breath, and went to Jesus. Her face relaxed with a bit of a smile. Her skin as smooth as a baby’s. But HER EYES!!!!

Her eyes were still wide open. The nurse asked if we wanted them shut, but I said, not yet. Because when I looked again into her eyes, they were clearer than any I had ever seen, and I knew she had seen Jesus. Her eyes were perfectly blue, the whites pure white again, and the pupils black and piercing. Her eyes seemed to follow me, though they didn’t move, and they were as though she could see straight through me. Perfect eyes and I believe they were perfect, because nothing cloudy can exist in the Presence of our LORD and Savior, JESUS CHRIST. There is no disease or lack of vision in Heaven. She could see now, and I knew my Aunt had seen JESUS and that she was now in the PRESENCE of the LORD. And I also knew that standing right there in room 124 at White Oak Manor … so was I.

I have been on a journey, and now I am still trying to return to “normal” and keep on keeping on…but with much better vision myself. My steps are ordered, and what a beautiful, long, demanding, and miraculous assignment this journey was.

“Almost a Missionary.” I will love and treasure this forever but it will always make me laugh out loud to think on my Aunt Freda telling that story over and over and hear someone in the family carry on what she started and still call me jokingly – “Almost a Missionary.”