Home free, eventually

At the ultimate healing

We will be home free

Home free, oh, I’ve got a feeling

At the ultimate healing

We will be home free

-“Home Free,” Wayne Watson

Last week, my mom, Lois Hart, passed away. When I got the call– one I had been expecting for several weeks– unlike other deaths of those close to me, I felt relief. Over the last few weeks, the lyrics above had been playing in my head, and she was finally “Home Free.” 

My mom had been in a bad way for the last three years. After battling cancer and barely beating it a second time, serious osteoporosis set in that left her hunched over. Then, last year, signs of dementia began to show and accelerated so fast that she was no longer safe, and we had to put her in a memory care facility that was 950 miles away from me. After being there just two weeks, tragically, she fell and broke her hip, and things went even more quickly downhill from there. She passed away under the care of Hospice at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, August 26th. She was 82 years old.

As Ben Sasse said recently, “death is a wicked thief,” but thankfully, as the Bible describes it, it’s also “the last enemy.”

She was a beautiful woman even though she never knew it. Her smile was infectious, and she carried herself with elegance. Her eyes lit up a room. Together with her giggles and easy laugh, these made those closest to her feel delighted in and deeply loved.

Despite her own devastations that included divorce and cancer (again, twice a survivor), she chose to carry her suffering with dignity and view life primarily through a lens of grace. She was an example to all who knew her, choosing courage over comfort and being a quiet, steady presence who celebrated the beauty of creation, literacy, and honest conversation.

Her first marriage failed; indeed, “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men” were unable and inadequate to save a relationship that, as I learned years later, began on a shakier foundation than I had once understood. This mix of sorrow and harm made her even more determined to stay committed to and invest in her second marriage to Robert Hart for over 33 years. Together they enjoyed many outdoor adventures, and she loved him well even in hard times. 

In my life, her greatest contributions were her unconditional and sacrificial love; her spiritual influence and prayers; and her constant belief that I had some spark of greatness in me. I now see the ripple effects of these gifts in my kids and grandchildren. 

She saw herself as weak, but she was stronger and more courageous than she knew. She battled spiritual and psychological demons for much of her later life that she never fully understood. Every morning without fail, she worked with herself in a disciplined way to read, learn, strengthen her faith, and give the best she had to a new day. Until she could no longer do so, she prioritized this regular private time with God, along with her involvement in a healthy church community. 

One thing my mom did early on to instill a lifelong love of reading in my sister and me involved summer vacations, the library, and a little ice cream shop named Daniel’s. Each year, our out-of-school routine began with a weekly trip to the public library, where we took out several books of our choosing. If we read one book that week, we got a small ice cream cone, two earned a large, and three or more earned a banana split. I went for the banana split every week, and I read a lot of books each summer.

Over the years, my mom and I would read many books together. The last– our more ambitious and important– was Augustine’s Confessions. We would try to stay in sync with our readings, texting meaningful quotes back and forth like:

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Or…

“I sighed, and you heard me. I wavered, and you steadied me. I traveled along the broad way of the world, but you did not desert me.”

With a bias characteristic of the best of moms, she always thought I was special and had a high calling. Unlike anyone else on the planet, I felt her empathy and prayers through every vocational struggle. During seasons of unemployment or underemployment, she weathered these with me, knowing what I desired and never doubting what I was capable of. 

Even recently, after working as a finish carpenter longer than I wanted and was good for my body, I wanted to tell her how God had surprised me with a new job. The lyrics of my favorite Irish artist, David C. Clements, captured a hope we shared: “My dear mother, I believe that a change is gonna come for me, I believe…” That change came, but alas, when I finally got to tell her three months ago, she could no longer understand me, and I wasn’t even sure she knew who I was.

This seemingly turbo-charged decline was heart-wrenching, as in 2023 we could still take three-mile walks together and contemplate life’s mysteries. Of course, these lofty conversations were always interspersed with trips to Steak ‘N Shake or a good pastry shop to bring us back down to earth. 

I will miss our walks the most. They began when I was younger. In those early years, we often had only one car or only one car that was working. When my dad worked Saturdays, my Mom, little sister Vicki, and I would walk five or six miles downtown to hand out flyers to individuals and families who were part of our church’s bus ministry. Although I later came to understand that there was an unhealthy anxiety and forced compliance with this church routine, my mom always made it fun. She would scrounge up change so we could get donuts at Century Bakery, go to the Bridgetown Diner, or go to Woolworth’s with their red bar stools for a hot dog “basket” or a root beer float. These were precious memories, but the best parts were the conversations that happened along the way. I would pour out my heart, and she would listen well, interact, and share stories. A closeness formed in those early years, a bond that even severe dementia could not steal completely. 

Throughout my teenage and adult life, our conversations continued to be cherished, whether it was over tea and Lorna Doones (a tradition for years), talks on the phone, or– the most precious– our walks. When she moved to Florida for the last period of her life, one of the things she missed the most about the Northeast was the vivid change of seasons. The yellow daffodils of Spring, associated with cooler climates, were her favorite flower, as they are mine. And Fall was her favorite season, as it is mine.  

It’s early September, and I now walk alone. But as I think of her, I can’t help having my senses stirred by everything around me– cooler breezes, certain smells, hints of browning, and the slower chirping of crickets that are constantly drowned out by choruses of male cicadas whose intensity can reach up to 100 decibels and travel over a mile. All of these things heighten my anticipation of autumn’s vibrant colors and blustery days. Fall always reminds me that God makes all things beautiful in his time. This year, it will also remind me, even though winter must come to us all, that the God who exists outside of time has conquered death and will– one day– make all things right.