What a privilege

I've finished reading my first book about heaven (more are probably in my future), written by a Baptist pastor from Texas, Don Piper (not that Piper) who died for 90 minutes.  It was reassuring and helped to cement Ian's experience before he died in my mind.  I was unexpectedly brought to tears though by a passage about Pastor Don Piper's mother as she was helping to care for him after his accident (he had a LONG, painful recovery after the accident in which he died).  This is what he wrote:

 "She took the bedpan into the bathroom, and then I heard one of the most remarkable sounds I have ever heard in my life.  After she entered the bathroom and flushed the commode, I could hear my mother singing.  In spite of the most lowly of tasks one human can perform for another, she sang as she washed out the bedpan.  It was as if her whole motherhood was wrapped up in that moment.  She was again doing something for her son that he could not do for himself, and she was happy and fulfilled.  I will cherish that memory, for it defines the devotion that only a mother could have."

I was transported back to the last moments I had with my son.  Ian was a proud young man and he wouldn't allow us to help him much.  Moms of teenage boys will know what I'm talking about....they get to a certain age and things become 'hands off', you can love them but from a slight distance.  During Ian's illness, he allowed us to help him but from a slight distance.  Even up to the end, when he was in so much pain, he continued to insist upon caring for himself.  That changed the moment he died.  I felt compelled to make sure he was clean and clothed, that his dignity would be intact before the mortuary staff came to take him away.   I was being 'mommy' again and I was cherishing the moment....I knew it would be the last time I could care for my son, the last time I would touch him, wipe his brow, hold his hand, kiss his forehead - these were my last moments with him and I spent them caring for him.  These people who were coming to take my son would know that he was loved and we had cared for him up until the very end.  So Eric & I privately washed him, put clean clothes on him then sat with him while we waited.

I never understood what drove me that day and I only told one person what we had done in case people would think I was being some kind of weirdo, demented mom.  But after I read the passage in Pastor Piper's book, I understood.  I was, once again, caring for Ian as I had when he was my little boy.....I got to be that woman who washed the scraped knees and kissed away the hurt again.  What a privilege and precious memory that has become, to be able to take care of my baby boy one last time.