Strength… #forthewrightreasons

August 21, 2019…it was just another time of crazy happening…this time to fix the 99% blockage in your heart. I was scared. 

The odds were stacked against you. It was then that you held me in your arms, and comforted me instead of the other way around. You told me during that embrace that you weren’t scared of the outcome because either way you would be healed on earth or healed and in Heaven. My anxiety was so high and you held me as I cried…you did everything you could to reassure me that there was so much peace in your mind and heart and you showed me what true strength looked like. 

We took this picture, because I was afraid it would be the last time I would get to see you. Through my tears you comforted me, as any mother would, but that day, you showed me what compassion felt like.

You fought so hard those next few days - especially the next, when you coded from losing so much blood...you fought so hard the following 6 months for everything to be the best you could make it. 

Little did either of us know that exactly 6 months after this picture, February 21, 2020, Would be the last day I would hear your voice over the phone.

February 21, 2020 I called you about my heart rate. My resting heart rate had been low and it concerned me, so you asked your ICU nurse about it. You had no shame…🤣

That conversation led to a conversation that I will NEVER forget. 

You said, “Baby, promise me that you will take care of yourself. You cannot be the mom and wife that God created you to be if you don’t take care of yourself.” I remember laughing and saying something like - 'I know mom' (...and probably rolled my eyes). 

Later that evening, I called and talked to dad. You had already put your CPAP machine on to go to sleep so dad showed you these photos I text, showing the progress that I had made. 

Dad relayed the message that you gave a thumbs up and then we went to bed. 

That was the last phone call I had with you alive. 

The next few days were such a whirlwind - a fog - a blur…

It took me almost 2 weeks to get back on track with my health. But I knew that I had to follow through with my promise - not only to you - but to myself!

It’s been 549 days…I miss you so much it hurts! Some days are harder than others, but then I remember this moment. This moment where you embraced me, filled with so much fear of how I was going to move forward, and you with no fear and so much strength.

Over the past year and a half, I have literally changed so many things. 

My faith is so much stronger, my mental health is stronger, my health is better than it was then for sure…and I push each day to remind myself that I am fighting for myself so I can be the mom and wife that you saw in me, that God sees in me.

I am strong because I had an amazingly strong woman that raised me!

Today, I struggle here and there…but I know the plan, I have the tools, and I plug into them daily…now, for me…

#forthewrightreasons