A good friend of mine Thomas Gregory gave me the honor to share this story with you all.
It was about 5:30 pm on Thanksgiving Day this past year. Mom had been in the hospital for a few weeks and now was on constant morphine drip to ease her discomfort. A very good friend called and said he wanted to come up and see Mom. I told him he could but that she had been asleep for the past 2 days. He said it didn’t matter he needed to come up. When he arrived he walked over to her and kissed her on the forehead and said a prayer. We spoke for a few minutes and he said let’s go get a cup of coffee. We went downstairs and as we were drinking the coffee he told me about a mutual friend Charlie whose mom was near the end of her life. Charlie is a minister and so he was praying continuously for his mom to be healed. At one point Charlie’s mom turned to him and said, “Charlie, please stop praying for me to be healed, I’m tired and I want to go home”. Shortly after Charlie’s mom passed.
That story struck home with me as one night about 2am during that week, when I spent the night with mom in the hospital I turned to her as she was pulling off her oxygen mask. I said, “Mom, you need to put that back on.” She just gently said to me, “Please let me go, I’m going to Heaven.” I didn’t verbally acknowledge her except to kiss her on her forehead and replace her O2 mask. I too had been praying nonstop for Mom to be healed and return home. As my friend departed the hospital and I was on the way back up in the elevator I prayed, “Oh God, please forgive me for being so selfish! Mom, I know there is no distance in prayer. I fully and freely release you, please release me. I will be ok. I love you. I will always love you. You will forever be in my heart.”
I got back to the room and she had passed. I was the first in the room and called the nurse in to verily that she had passed. She said yes. As she said that I looked up over Mom’s bed and this angel was hanging there. I asked the nurse who placed that there. She said, “I thought YOU did!” I said, “No, it wasn’t me!” I was only gone a very short while from the room.
I asked if I could have a few minutes alone and she said take all the time you need Tom. As I stood by Mom’s bedside tears streaming down my face I began to just pray when all of a sudden the TV in the room came on. I looked up to see the hospital meditation channel on. Then, scrolling across the screen, it said, “A perfect day”. Indeed, Mom was no longer in pain and was with her Lord and Savior. I instantly felt a peace come upon me. It was as if the Angel on the wall and the message on the TV was Mom’s way of telling me, “Yes, I am OK, everything is just fine. It is a perfect day”.
