The floor was hard, painful to my knees. I thought fleetingly of the dirt, the germs that must find their way onto the tile in hospital bathrooms. But I knew that I needed to be there, kneeling, tears coming, face contorted in concentration and yearning. “God, heal her. God, just please, in the name of Jesus, heal her.” I knew He heard me. He is so good.
Standing, anxiously opening the door with the sleeve of my shirt, walking briskly down the hallway, I approached the room feeling a mixture of nervous anticipation and fear. The doctor was there, white coat, pens in the pocket, my mother’s file in his hand. “She’s out of danger. Her heart rate is normal, and she didn’t have a heart attack. We’ll keep her overnight just to be safe.”
Maintaining a timeline is nearly impossible. I think that hospital visit, the three day two night stay in Reading, happened in Winter 2007, but I can’t be certain. I know that her cancer surgery was some time before that. I remember the Christmas prior, the melancholy mood, our attempts to produce cheer, the sinking feeling that something wasn’t quite right. And I know that in some place at some time, maybe in another world, Mom took long walks, went on day-long shopping sprees, even bought an old bicycle. Once we started making daily trips to Ephrata for chemotherapy, I was convinced that our afternoons at the park, our day trips, our late TV nights were over. In fact, I was sure more than that was over. Does joy make an appearance in cancer clinics and hospitals?
Soon the long car rides, the hours spent in the infusion room, the chats with patients became the norm. My mother’s stubbornness and her will to live proved strong. This was a woman unwilling to give up. She didn’t, however, always employ the stubbornness in the most helpful way. Only days into the treatments, she refused to let anyone access her port (a healthier alternative to daily IVs) because it caused her so much pain. Nurse Judy was the only one with the right combination of tact, gusto, and cheeriness to convince my headstrong parent that accessing her port was a necessary part of chemo treatments. I scrunched up my face in pain, waiting for the cry, the shout, the “No, no! It hurts.” Such a strange mixture of relief and disappointment flooded into me once the needle was in and the chemo was pumping. I never wanted her to feel pain. I had tried so hard for so long, since before I’d entered middle school, to shield her from hurt, disappointment, and rejection. Watching her walk through cancer was my worst nightmare. Not only did it threaten to take my mother from me, but it became an unstoppable current of pain, one against which I, though I wouldn’t admit it, was powerless.
While the chemicals attacked the cancer, eating at a faster rate than the disease could grow, things started to change inside me. I remember one day in particular. The feelings are vivid. The day in question marked the first time Mom experienced no pain when Nurse Judy pressed the sizable needle into the skin just below her collar bone. The degree of relief and joy, yes joy, that flooded my heart was surprising. It had somehow seeped through the glass doors, the brick walls, the waiting rooms, the laboratories into the infusion room, into me, into my mother. I even laughed.
A year later, last summer I think, Mom and I sat down to talk about the experiences of the previous few months. I heard, almost in disbelief, as she admitted, “Last year at this time, I felt so dark and empty inside. This year there’s hope, joy, light.” Her spirit was shifting, growing, illuminating.
I went to Mexico the summer following Mom’s diagnosis and the summer after that. For a week each time, I helped lead mission teams of junior high youth. The first plane flight felt like heaven. As the airplane lifted off the ground, the stress, released from the gravity that bound it to my shoulders, floated upwards and away. Cancer didn’t dog my steps in Reynosa. The second summer, though, it was more than present. The threat of its return, even after all the treatments and the surgery, was looming.
That second summer all 40 of us, leaders and youth, helped build a church in Matamoras, a border town. On the final day we gathered in the structure, laid hands on the congregation members and the walls and joists, and prayed a blessing on the people and the place. Then Pastor Jesus started to speak, Ivan translating: “God woke me up this morning. He told me I needed to pray for someone from the team. I didn’t know who it was, but now I know. It’s Rachel and her mother who is suffering from cancer.” And with that the hands of my teammates and our new Mexican friends found me. Over forty voices, in Spanish and English, spoke on our behalf, spoke healing for my mother, asked God, pleaded with God, declared in faith that this woman would be healed. The sweat and the tears mingled on my face. I felt hope. Sweat, tears, hope. I felt overwhelmed. I remembered the hard bathroom floor, the pleading, the sight of the doctor in the white coat. I knew God was hearing. He is so good.
But the cancer did come back. In fact, I found out shortly after that last trip to Mexico. Where is the goodness? What is healing? I started questioning then, and I’m still asking now after the third round of chemo, the latest hospital visit, the endless medications. The answers are just beginning to come.
Just this year at the end of February, a light bulb illuminated the dark places in me that were questioning whether God was even good at all. Mom had been having trouble eating and drinking because of the chemotherapy. She became dehydrated, so dehydrated that her organs were starting to malfunction. I met her and the rest of the family at the hospital. I heard her refuse to even wear a hospital gown, refuse an IV, refuse the liquid that would restore her strength, her very life. At first I thought, maybe she’s done. Maybe she wants to go home, not just to Stouchsburg, but to Jesus. And then, slowly, an understanding dawned. I remembered Nurse Judy. I remembered the pained expression on Mom’s face before the needle even touched her skin. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. She wanted to live; she wanted healing, but she didn’t want the pain.
When she finally did accept treatment later that night, the liquid dripped into her body one tiny tear-shaped drop at a time. Over the course of the next four days, her organs began to function well and her appetite started to return. She chose the pain, and in doing so, she chose the healing.
I didn’t want to write about this, any of this. Somehow it makes the whole set of experiences more real. I never wanted the hospital visits, the cancer clinic episodes, the doubt, the fear, and the worry in my heart to see the light of day. I wanted to live, to heal, but I didn’t want the pain.
I came home from a hospital visit that week Mom was treated for dehydration, feeling such a strong mixture of anger, disappointment, outrage, and fear that my face had no way of hiding it. The hospital was keeping Mom longer than they’d initially thought necessary. I shared the day’s experiences with a friend, shared them through gritted teeth. Realizing I hadn’t been thanking God, I started to list evidences of His goodness—my cousin Sheri was one of Mom’s nurses, Mom was no longer experiencing such strong pain, the dehydration was rapidly reversing. Perspective stepped in and my friend spoke: Stop listing. The list is a limitation. That whole day, that whole week—God was good. God is good—in the hospital, at home, in pain, in happiness, in needles, in white sheets, in cancer, in blood, in water, in joy. Blood, water, joy: Jesus healing, interceding. I know a light inside. My mother knows a light inside. I know God hears me. God is so good.
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