It was late. It had been a hard day for my siblings and me—one we knew was coming. But the day hadn’t gone at all how we’d planned. I tossed and turned in bed, thinking about Mom’s last minutes here on earth, dying all alone in her hospice room. More than anything, we all had wanted someone to be with her when she took her last breath.
Our 89-year-old mother had been slipping away for the past two months. We knew she didn’t have much time left, so we’d come up with a schedule to make sure one of us was by her side. Today had been my day, but my brother and sister showed up as well. “I can’t explain it,” Gary said. “I just couldn’t stay away.” Bonnie had the same feeling. It seemed as if the Lord had drawn us all there together for a reason. We gathered around Mom’s bed, waiting. We asked one of the nurses if she thought we should stay the night.
“It’s hard to say,” she said gently.
“It could be days yet. We can’t predict when someone will feel the peace of that final goodbye and be ready.”
We finally left Mom in good care, but I got the call not 15 minutes later. Mom was gone. My siblings and I rushed back to grieve together.
Now, at home, I couldn’t sleep. I rolled over, staring at the ceiling. If only we’d waited, I thought. What if Mom had spent her final moments searching desperately for a familiar face, looking for comfort and unable to find it? Had I let her down?
All I could do was pray until I fell asleep and found myself in a vivid dream. I was lying in a bed, one I recognized. Whenever I stayed overnight with Mom in her old apartment, we both slept in her bedroom. But Mom wasn’t there beside me in the dream. She was standing on her dresser. “Mom, what are you—?”
A figure stood beside her. A man, dark-skinned and wearing rich, colorful robes. He looked regal, with a strange, otherworldly air about him. He acknowledged me with a bow of his head, then turned to Mom, taking her hand.
I watched, amazed, as they ascended, weightless. Up and up. Mom spared me one last loving look before they disappeared through the ceiling. Stunned, I looked around the room, searching for answers. My eyes lighted upon something on Mom’s side of the bed. It was her hospital gown—the one she’d been wearing when she died—crumpled and discarded. Where she was going, she had no more need of it.
I awoke that next morning with a profound sense of peace. The same peace Mom must have felt after she had said her final goodbye to all three of her children before going off to heaven. We hadn’t left her alone at all. An angel escort was there waiting for her to be ready.
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