Practicing Trust

Unlike most of her friends, my mother never spoke with regret about what she’d left behind. When I asked if she’d like to drive by the family house one last time, she declined. She chose just enough furniture to make her independent living apartment homey but not crowded. And when she moved into one room in Assisted Living, she chose an easy-chair and lamp for reading, our grandfather clock, and three etchings by a local artist – one for each daughter.  No family pictures. No television. Nothing to hold her back.

At 91, my mother was clear about what she wanted for the final phase of her journey. Three days before she died, she was sitting up in her hospital bed, holding hands with a woman who had been doing her laundry, when I heard her say, “Shirley, I know you work with migrant farm workers. Please bundle up my clothes and take them. I won’t be needing them anymore.” So I helped Shirley clear the closet and the drawers.

Frankly, I was stunned by her clarity, but looking back, I can see that she had been practicing trust with each move. Trust that others would help. Trust that what she truly needed would be there – or if not, that she would be able to handle it. When my sister chose not to come, she simply said “Oh. Well then, I won’t wait.” And went back to the work of dying, apparently at peace.

“Take nothing extra with you,” Jesus said as he sent his disciples out into a hostile world “and stay where you are welcomed.”*  Furthermore, the text says, they would be “like sheep in the midst of wolves.” And yet they were to BE the presence of love, of trust and goodness instead of reacting with fear and defensiveness. Like my mother, the disciples would be a sign that God’s realm is near at hand.