Special People

Saturday we went to the funeral of a great man, Cliff Williams. He was the Pastor of The Rock church and 2 years ago was diagnosed with Lou Gerigh’s disease. He fought the disease all the way to the end and it eventually killed him. He kept praising God throughout his illness and keeping his and everyone else’s spirits up. His funeral really made me feel blessed that my mom died as quickly as she did. With the prognosis of her cancer, she was supposed to have a terrible battle for a year where it would eventually shut down her body like Cliff’s disease did. My mom was coherent a day before she died, but was in a lot of pain. We only had two days in the hospital of watching her die. Even though it sucked that they said she had a year, and she only had 2 weeks, I am so glad she did not live the entire year. IT would have been so much worse for her to suffer for a longer period of time, and to watch her go through that. The cancer was in her brain, stomach, lymph nodes and pretty much everywhere else in her body. The doctor’s said because it was in her brain; it could make her personality change, or put her in a semi vegetative state. After she died I had some nightmares about my mom with a different personality. In my dream she still had her cancer, and she was very mean because the cancer had damaged her brain so much. God was gracious and took her quickly because he wanted her in heaven and so she would not have to suffer anymore. It seems strange for me to feel blessed that my mom died quickly, but after realizing what she could have gone through, I am happy. I have always been at peace about her going to heaven because I didn’t think it was fair for me to be selfish and keep her on earth longer if she was just going to suffer and be miserable. I think God chooses special people to get terminal illnesses because he knows which ones can be witnesses and do so much more in their shorter lives, than most of us can do in our longer lives. Cliff left a great legacy, and I think my mom did too.