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My Mum's Victory over Death - A Son's Tale
Martin tells how, after many years away from the Church, the events surrounding his mother's death changed his life completely and brought him back to the Lord. |
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Mum's illness
At the time, we did not realise that she had only days to live. During the next five days she got steadily worse. I was in constant contact with my sisters. By Thursday 17th January 2008, I got the news of her worsening condition from my sister whist at work and immediately travelled from Edinburgh to Stretford, Manchester. I arrived at teatime, my mum was in her bed and had already gone from strong painkillers to morphine by injection and as I sat with her she could not see me but I was told that she could still hear me. Her eyes were cloudy and she could not focus on the occasions that she did open her eyes. Early Friday morning the district nurses came to change her medication and we where told that if any relatives needed to see her they better come quickly as she was not expected to last the night. By eleven o'clock on Friday night, my mum was very sick and had not opened her eyes for most of the day and was on her side facing the bedroom door. I had left the room to get my supper and was sitting in the dining room when my niece and nephew came into the room and asked me urgently to go to the bedroom as my mum was getting worse. At the time I did not believe that anything was out of the ordinary. What I did not know as I made my way up the stairs to her bedroom was that my whole life was about to change completely forever. I must point out at this point, that I was born into a catholic family had been baptised and confirmed and went to mass every Sunday. By the time I reached 16 years of age, I stopped going to church and for the next 40 years I went to weddings and other special occasions but never to regular mass and certainly not confession. My mum and my sisters had been praying for me to return to the faith for years. What I had not realised at the time but did later was the sacrifice it would require to bring me back to the faith. Mum's final moments As I mounted those stairs, I had no idea what God had in store for me and how the next 10 minutes would change my life forever. I came into the bedroom and straight away I realised that something was different as my brother was leaning over my mum and saying to her "hello mum". I looked round my brother and my mum had lifted her head off the pillow and had moved her head forward with her eyes fully open she was staring into the corner of the room just past the door, which I had just come through. As I looked at my mum, I realised that she had her eyes wide open and they where a very blight blue which was unusual as her eyes were grey. It looked to me like a torch was being shone through my mum's eyes, the blueness was intense. The fact that she had her head off her pillow at all was a miracle in its self as she was very weak and drugged up to the eyeballs on morphine. As I looked at her I realised that her face had a look on it of sheer joy and looked to me to be a lot younger than her 78 years. As I looked on in sheer wonder, the light blue in her eyes dimmed and her body crumpled into her pillow and her last breath left her, she was dead, it was 11.45pm. Having witnessed this wonderful event, I am convinced that I saw her soul leaving her body and going to Jesus. I was not the only one to see this, at least four other people saw it and their story is the same as mine. After the initial sobbing and crying, the doctor was called and she was certified dead. Her body was taken to the funeral home but nobody felt the need to visit her until the following Wednesday afternoon as we realised that what was at the funeral home was a body and not my mum as she had gone with Jesus. So you may say that I was seeing things and because it was my mum I was not fully taking things in. To say that my mum had just died a number of hours earlier, I sat in the bedroom alone and felt the most perfect peace in the room and it was a great comfort to me. Well I know what I saw and it will remain with me for the rest of my life. Called back to the Church Having only got a few hours sleep by 9.30 the next morning, my brother, nephew and myself could be found sitting in the local Catholic church at mass. Well, within days, I was at church having confession, which after 40 years was not quick and took a lot of soul searching on my part. I still go to mass and communion and have been going two or three times a week every since. I was not the only one to be affected by what happened in that bedroom both my brother and nephew, who both had not been to mass for many years have now gone back to mass and attend a family pray group on a weekly basis in Stretford. I have started praying morning and night, I also pray the rosary every day and have joined two charismatic prayer groups back in Edinburgh. It is now nine months since my mum died, and I have changed my life completely and after going to a charismatic weekend with my sisters, at which I was prayed over by a number of people and on the following Monday afternoon I started to speak in tongues and my life is going from strength to strength in the service of the Lord. My daughter who was not in the house but I told the story to her has also started going to mass every Sunday. Both my nephew and myself have felt the call to go to Medjugorje and spent a week there in early Oct 2008. We are also going to Lourdes for a week in December and feel the call to go back to Medjugorje and are looking to go back with most of the family in May 2009. Where I end up is in the Lord's hands but what a ride it has been so far and with the Holy Spirit's help and guidance it will continue to progress as I firmly believe that Jesus poured out his grace on me and my family in that bedroom the night my mum died. Praise the Lord.
November 2008
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My
mum was not well, she had been having trouble with her stomach and the
doctor had diagnosed an infection and put her on penicillin and after
a number of weeks being ill but nobody knowing exactly what was wrong
with her as well as a number of trips to hospital she was not getting
better.