SyndicationJul262008
10:58:46 pm
10:58:46 pm
Maureen's journey Home!
I've been using "Maureen" throughout all my posts. But today I am calling her "mom".
These last five and half years have been trying years for sure. But what have we learned? I am going to share with you the lessons I've learned. First, you don't realize how much you love someone until something bad or sad happens to them. A few days after Katie and I got married (2003), mom told me that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. At that moment, it felt like the world was crumbling down on us. We thought the worse would happen. Mom went through radiation and chemotherapy to beat the cancer, and, for a while, she was winning.
April 2006, three years later, her cancer came back. More chemotherapy and surgery would for sure defeat the cancer. Not this time. End of September 2006, the cancer moved to her brain. Did mom give up? NO! Not for one second was she going to let this cancer take her from her family. The moment before the nurses came to take her into her surgery, mom told me words that I will always cherish and surely will never forget. I hope to pass these words on to my children someday. These words are my words, so I will not share them here. So, a surgery so severe and mom stepped up to the plate to buy more time with her family. Her recovery wasn't what we all had hoped, and yet she was still determined not to throw herself a "pitty party".
As the months went on, cancer moved to her bones, lungs, and back to her brain. She told me that she would do whatever it took to spend more time with her family. She was not ready to leave her family. However, God called her home today. The scene in her hospital room as she breathed her last was a sight I want to have while I'm preparing to make my final journey home. Her husband of 37 years, all of her children, brothers and sisters, her mom, cousins and friends, gathered around her bed during the Divine Mercy Hour, all reciting the Divine Mercy Chaplet as God sent his angels down to carry her soul into his heavenly bosom. As she took her last breath, I felt peace knowing that her pain and suffering here on earth is over. She finally defeated her cancer. I say this because cancer can not go to Heaven.
Mom is now looking down upon us all with one goal in mind: get us all to Heaven, too! I have learned to love more deeply because of mom's trials. I have learned to be patient as she went in for all her treatments/surgeries. I have learned to say, "I love you" today, because tomorrow you may not have the chance. Although mom has been gone for some hours now, I already miss her smile. I have placed her in a special place in my heart and will love her for eternity. I look forward to meeting up with her in Heaven to feel her warm embrace.
I thank all of you for the outpouring of love you have shown towards mom. She is forever grateful, as we all are. For those who were not at her bedside or hospital today, I know that you were connected in your prayers. You are all beautiful people and I am glad God chose you to be mom's friends. From the Bettini family, Thank you and God bless you all+