Page 20 of Wish You Faith

Mom enjoyed cooking for others, and did not let arthritis in her hands stop her. There she was now in the break room, dishing out seconds to hungry employees and chatting with them about their families.

“Have more! All you can eat!” Mom went around the room, making sure everyone had their fill.

“If you run out?” one of the employees asked.

“Then I’ll come back tomorrow with another pot.”

Mom watched the tree farm employees like they were children. Rosie knew that Mom had wished for more kids of her own. By the sovereign providence of God, she had only given birth to Rosie. Mom was forty-five years old then, and it was a difficult pregnancy.

Standing at the door and recording the break room scene on her iPhone, Rosie couldn’t imagine life without Mom. The break room wouldn’t be as warm as today, with Mom’s easy laughter filling the space.

Tears pooled in Rosie’s eyes. The phone shook in her hand.

She had to stop recording and step back before Mom saw her. She retreated down the hall and burst into tears as she approached the women’s restroom to hide.

“Are you okay?” Evan’s voice.

She waved him away without looking at whether it was really Evan or not.

In the women’s bathroom, she cried into a wad of paper towels to muffle her sobs.

Maybe she feared needlessly. Mom’s life was in God’s hands. If her cancer returned and God took her home, she would be finally free from pain. Jesus Christ would welcome Mom to heaven. God would wipe away her tears, as promised in Revelation 21:4.

And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Rosie had wanted to quit her job and stay with Mom until her dying day, but Mom had talked her out of it. Not only was her Christmastown work the sole income for both of them, but Rosie would drive everyone nuts if she stayed at home and hovered over Mom day and night.

Mom knew that Rosie had to keep working. Work had been Mom’s way to distract herself from missing Dad. If she hadn’t been diagnosed with terminal cancer, Mom would’ve kept working as a librarian well into her late seventies.

Like mother, like daughter.

The more Rosie worked, the less she worried about the days to come when she’d be going home to an empty house—Mom and Dad both gone.

Ironically, Rosie had been working so hard lately—thanks to the Christmas season—that she’d missed seeing Mom before she went to bed at night. A few times a week when she wasn’t at the SSLR community center, Mom would either carpool with Rosie or take an Uber to the tree farm so that she could volunteer doing some light work.

Lorenzo had set up a hammock in the greenhouse for Mom to take a nap if she wanted to. After lunch, Rosie would drive her home fifteen minutes away.

Suddenly realizing it was almost after lunch, Rosie splashed water on her face and patted it dry. She checked her eyes in the mirror. Not too red.

She rushed out of the restroom, and stopped when she saw Evan standing there.

“You okay?” His voice was almost a whisper, as though he was keeping a secret for her.

She barely nodded, trying not to cry again. Sometimes she was moody once a month, but that wasn’t it today. Today she was simply sad that Mom was dying before her very eyes. She wanted to spend more time with her, but she had to work. It wasn’t a job that she could telecommute to.

Thankfully, Amy allowed Mom to hang out with them as a volunteer.

Rosie switched gears to work mode. “The truck all loaded up?”

“Yes, it is. I’m eating lunch now and then off we go to SSLR.”

Every year in the first week of December, Christmastown sent a crew to decorate the Savannah Senior Living Resort. Although Savannah was in their name, the retirement community was located on Tybee Island. So popular was SSLR that not everyone who wanted to live there could. Mom had been on the waiting list for three years.

Rosie walked with him to the break room. “Mom’s chili is contest-ready. Have you tried some?”

“Not yet. You eating now?”

She nodded.

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