Where Can I Turn for Peace?
Here it goes... When my mother died at the end of age 57, just two weeks in to her fifty-eighth year, we sang "Where Can I Turn for Peace" for her funeral. I knew Mom loved that song. I knew she had spent countless hours wondering when her pain and trials would end from Multiple Sclerosis. It was hard for me to listen over the phone (she lived 9 hours away) about her pain, especially when she talked about a lead-slab feeling on her chest. That scared me beyond awful. My neighbor friend had lost her father to Multiple Sclerosis. When her father started feeling a heavy lead weight on his chest, it was close. He didn't live much longer. So I was like a little kid with my hands over my ears when she spoke of that feeling. I tried to reason it away, like maybe heartburn or something. Reality was that death was surrounding her more and more everyday. I stayed optimistic, never telling her about what I knew to be true. I still think back about those days like they just happen...