Essay Contest Honorable Mention
In the Night

Darlene Young
Volume 23, No. 4

At first, the doctors said Mom's pain was just from stress. "Go home and rest," they said. It had been a stressful year. She had helped one daughter recover from a long, painful illness and another recover from a disastrous broken engagement. Mom tried to relax and reorder her life. She bought new running shoes and planned an exercise program. But the pain persisted. 

When tests finally revealed the tumor, we all felt a little relief to have something concrete to blame for the mysterious pain. I also felt a strange sense of resignation. I think that because Mom's mother had died quite young of cancer, I had subconsciously felt the inevitability of Mom's getting it, too. But, inevitable or not, it was something to fight, and we dove into battle wholeheartedly. 

First there was surgery. I skipped school that day and went up to Salt Lake to be with Dad in the hospital. I thought Mom would die during surgery because during her last surgery ten years earlier, her heart had stopped and she had had a near-death experience. Mom seemed to share my fears. She made me promise to take her jogging shoes, used only once, back to the store for a refund. She made me promise to make Dad get his blood pressure checked. She told me I could have her new scriptures. I didn't know how to respond to her requests and could only think of movies I'd seen in which the characters would say, 'Oh, Mom, don't talk that way!' 

She survived the surgery, so then came chemotherapy. Chemo was very hard on Mom, but she kept it to herself and Dad pretty well. Even though the doctors said it wouldn't, Mom's hair fell out – in handfuls at a time – and she would weep in the shower. She sometimes wore a wig, but it wasn’t a very good one because she couldn't see the reason for spending lots of money on a good one. Around the house she wore a turban. Dad sometimes wore one too, just to make us laugh. 

We tried to laugh often. Sometimes we cried, and that felt okay because it felt justified. And, surprisingly, it felt okay to argue because it was proof that our family was still normal. 

And then, as is common, things seemed to get better. Mom grew healthy and vigorous. Her hair grew back, darker and thicker than before. We rejoiced cautiously and tried to treasure the extra time together. 

But when the cancer returned a year later, Mom and Dad didn't fight quite as hard. The doctors said she could have chemotherapy again and more intensely than before, but Mom didn't think it would work when it hadn't the first time, and the agony of the therapy just didn't seem to be worth it. There was more surgery but with only depressing results. 

My clearest memory of this time was a day I visited Mom in the hospital. I tried to distract myself from her wan, emaciated figure in the bed by bustling around, but nothing I did was right. I spilled her water, dropped her bag. She was so frustrated with me and with the world, and I was so full of ache to serve her. And then I bumped into her and she shrieked with pain, and I ran out into the hall. A nurse saw me crying there and tried to comfort me. I wanted to say, "Just leave me alone! Don't touch me!" I hated that the nurse thought I was crying for Mom, and I was really just crying for myself. 

Feeling a desperate need to help, I moved home to Salt Lake to be near Mom and Dad. 

After the last surgery, it became clear that Mom felt ready to die. She refused to try any of the drastic "miracle cures" that friends suggested. One cure, I remember, consisted of drinking large amounts of hydrogen peroxide daily. The list of side effects of this cure was long and horrible and, according to Mom, worse than death. 

I think Mom's earlier near-death experience contributed to her sense of resignation about death. Although she couldn’t recall many details of the experience, she had a strong memory of her feelings at the time: her own ache to remain on the other side and the great disappointment she felt when she knew she must return. She had no doubt that there was life – glorious life more full of love and joy than anything we can imagine – on the other side of the veil. She was actually looking forward to returning. 

Friends told Mom that she ought to write letters to everyone she would be leaving behind, letters to be read at a future time. But she felt that nothing she could say now could change the life she had led and the relationships she had created over time. I was amazed at the peace she felt about the memories others would have of her. 

Knowing that things can be drawn out too long, Mom asked that no heroic measures be made when the end came. As her liver failed and her pain intensified, she grew distant and dazed. Towards the end, she couldn't and wouldn't eat. We didn’t take her to the hospital; it was what she wanted. 

A few months before Mom died, I was married (with a happy engagement this time). The wedding was pretty much the last thing Mom left the house for. Sick as she was, she looked radiant and healthy that day and full of joy. 

After my wedding, I spent afternoons with her. I spooned soup into her mouth and wiped her chin when the soup dribbled out. I helped bathe her. I washed her as she had washed her own dying mother. I washed her as she had washed me when I was a baby. Gracefully letting me take care of her at the end was the most beautiful gift my mother ever gave me. She could hardly talk then, but she would murmur, "I love you, I love you ..." Eyes closed, drooling, 'I love you..." 

One night she woke Dad. Suddenly speaking clearly, she said, 'Jerry, I want to go. Is it all right to go? Is it really all right?" And he said, 'Yes, sweetheart, you can go." She was quiet a moment and then wailed in misery, "But I don’t know how! Oh, someone show me how!"

When Dad called with the news of her quiet passing a few nights later, I wept softly and slept and went to him in the morning. Mom had planned every detail of her funeral and had even chosen her own casket, so the workload wasn't tremendous. But Dad let me do it, and I considered this the most beautiful gift that he had ever given me. I was grateful to be able to do something for him, for he was in much pain. To me, Mom's death felt more cleansing to me than tearing. I had grieved deeply during the long illness, but after her death there was no bitterness. I never felt the pain of mourning the way Dad did.

It is a different thing to lose a spouse. Even now, when years have mostly dulled the pain to an ache, he still experiences occasional nights of agony. The only comparison I have to how he must feel during those nights is the night I cried out – screamed, even – to God over my first, unhappy engagement, the one that had caused my mother so much stress. I had known I needed to break things off but felt that I couldn't do it unless I felt God's presence and reassurance. So I waited for a sign from Him. The universe was silent, empty, all night long, night after night. And in the mornings I had to dress and go to work anyway. That, I think, is what mourning must feel like to my Dad. 

One day Dad talked to me a little about how losing Mom has changed him. "When I was younger," he said, 'I used to have all the answers. But now I am discovering that the universe doesn't work the way I thought it did. It's as if I am a child who asks my father, "What makes a car go?' and he answers me in a way I can understand: 'The key makes it go.' A little later he might say 'gasoline,' and when I'm older still he might explain how an engine works. With each answer I am sure I have the truth, but there is always more to be learned. I used to know how God and the universe worked," he said, "and now I am having to ask the questions again." 

"What has surprised you?" I asked, for I knew he did not doubt that he would see Mom again someday. He didn't answer for a while, and then said, "When we knew your mother was dying, she promised me that if I ever desperately needed her, she would come to me – no matter how happy she was there." He paused. "I have had moments of gut-wrenching, life-shaking need so desperate that it borders on despair. I'm sure Mom knows what I have felt. And she hasn't come. Now, Mother keeps her promises. She would come if she could. She must be forbidden to come. And that's not how I had thought God and the universe worked." 

I thought back to the nights I cried out to God and He wasn’t there. The hopelessness and despair were deeper than any feelings I had ever felt before; but, over time, they led me to know myself and God better than I ever had before. Once I had broken the engagement, I discovered that I had been strong enough to do it all by myself. And then I found God again in my life. But before I did the difficult thing – even during the very moments of doing it – I did not feel God. Anywhere. It was as if I had to cross a bridge alone, without Him. 

In church I often hear a poem about a man who dies and looks back over his life as footprints in the sand. He learns that the second set of footprints that appears near his own belongs to the Lord, who accompanied him on his walk through life. When he asks the Lord about the times when he sees only one set of footprints, the Lord replies, 'That's when I carried you." 

I can see why this poem is inspirational to so many people; it speaks to the most fundamental of human fears – that of being left unbearably alone in the quiet of the night. While it is true that many times God does carry us, I believe that sometimes he leaves us alone. 

Look at Abraham. God takes Abraham to a hill and tells him to sacrifice his only son. This test is not to teach God about Abraham because God already knows Abraham's heart. The test is to benefit Abraham, but that is hard to see at first. He is deliberately left alone – abandoned, even – to puzzle out the riddle of why God would ask him to kill his only son when He had promised him that he would have seed as numerous as the stars. And there is silence – no answer from God. So, all alone, Abraham takes a deep breath and does the difficult thing. And not until after he begins does God return to him. Abraham learns what God knew all along: that he, Abraham, can do the most wrenching task imaginable, all by himself, if he knows it is God's will. This precious knowledge about himself will help him throughout his life. 

God gives me opportunities to gain this precious knowledge as well. When He leaves me alone for a few moments, I experience choosing the right totally on my own. When my baby was learning to walk, I was tempted to hold his hands and walk with him. But I knew that he needed to do it himself – and even fall – if he was ever going to walk on his own. Of course, I made sure that he didn’t fall harder than he could handle. I didn’t encourage him to practice on a ten-foot wall. But in situations I knew he could handle (though he may have disagreed), I left him alone. And when he finally mastered the task, he experienced joy in a fullness that he would never have known had he not experienced the pain and the growth himself. 

As I learn to be a parent, there have been times when I have wished Mom had written those letters to be read later in our lives. What would she have told me about postpartum depression? What would she advise me to do when I feel useless as a mother? When I have struggles in my life, it seems as if a few words of advice from her could make all the difference. But, of course, it doesn't come, and I struggle on alone. And I figure things out. And I grow. And I look back to discover that I actually made it once again without her letter. 

Like Dad, I believe that Mom sees his need. But I think that when she looks at him, she sees the eternal him, the man who can survive those nights of emptiness – when no letter or message comes – and grow from them. She sees the end from the beginning. She sees and maybe even feels the ache as Dad slowly learns that even this, the last abandonment, he can survive. But she sees joy at the end of the road. 

God is preparing me for adulthood in His sight. If I somehow manage to get myself up on a ten-foot wall, he will be there to catch me. When I don't feel Him near, despite my righteousness, faith, and prayers, perhaps He wants me to know that I am stronger than I think and that I can walk on my own. And He – and Mom – will be nearby to congratulate me when I look back and see that the walk is over and I have been made glorious, bright with my own light and strong from the exercise.

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