Excerpt from Chapter 9 - The Key
On August 10, 1979 most of the family were witness to the most beautiful passing from one life to the next. Of all the gifts my mother so richly endowed on us throughout her life, her final parting gift left no doubt that there is, indeed, a wonderful after-life for those who have earned it by faith and good works.
It had been an extremely stormy day with severe thundershowers as my father and most of the children gathered around my mother's hospital bed. Mommy had been in a coma for a week but she suddenly turned her head toward the window. As my sister-in-law, Lucille, moved to the side of the bed to see my mother's face, there was a break in the clouds which allowed a ray of sunshine to fall on my mother's pillow. As the family watched the heavens reach out to my mother, Lucille's voice broke the silence. "Come here...Mommy's eyes are open!" When everyone was within range, my mother's eyes, and smile, rested on each person individually. We knew she was telling us how much she loved us and that things were going to be just fine. With that task accomplished, her gaze went to something beyond our vision. Her face was radiant as she gazed in awe. Then she beamed as if seeing something so magnificent that it erased the pain of leaving the family she treasured more than life itself. Her eyes, her smile, and that broad beaming left us with an inner peace that she was indeed welcomed into paradise. It hadn't been an easy journey through life but her undying faith in God, in her family and in the goodness of people earned her passage to what, no doubt, were the golden gates and into the realm of the everlasting. She lived in faith and died in faith.