Welcome to Hope in the Morning, turning tragedies and tears into testimonies of hope. Have you ever thought about the significance of a mother's love in shaping who you became to be when you grew up? Oftentimes the nurture and guidance of our mother has a profound impact on how we see ourselves and on our faith.
The loss of a mother is a deep wound at any age. Joining us today is Christina Jones. She's a good friend of mine and we've actually been friends for three years. And yet this is our first conversation without nine precious children running around us. She's a wife and a mother of five and our kids love each other, but it makes it so we don't really have conversations.
So, yeah, not uninterrupted. We have conversation, but not uninterrupted. So, Christina, I am so thankful that you're joining us today and would just love to hear about your mom, kind of what made her special, memories you have of her growing up and how she impacted the woman you are today that I'm proud to call my friend.
Thank you so much. I really am appreciative of you allowing me to have a safe space to be able to talk about her. I think a lot of times people don't take the time to really process, especially with me, because I have five kids now. When she first passed, I only had three. And I think for me, I just wanted to go, go, go over and over again. Just go, go, go, not think about it, not necessarily process it the way that I should have. And I think for me, even to this day, it's like, OK, do I know how I feel?
Do I know how to process this the right way? And in honestly, in a godly way, like, how do I how do I do that? So one thing about my mom is that she was very, very strong. I mean, I'm not a single mom, but she was.
She had six children. My dad died when I was five years old. My oldest sister, she was 12. So I think for me, that was a life changing moment.
I was only five. So I remember his passing, but I don't really have too much recollection about his passing. And so I think dealing with her and her passing away, two totally different skills. So my mom was very strong, like I said before, a very strong woman. I felt like she always put us first.
She never really concerned herself with what her needs were. And I think that's what ultimately caused her demise. And I think oftentimes in our community, like we don't focus on ourselves enough.
We always focus on our children, always focus on other family and friends that we never take the time to really focus on each other or focus on us as moms. And so I think that was a wonderful thing for her to do. But also, like sometimes I want her thinking about it now. I want her to be selfish sometimes, like think about you.
I think it was in May of 2019 is when we first found out like something was wrong. My mom has always been really sure my siblings would say that, too, like she never got sick. She never she sniffle things like that. But you're talking about six kids. And then once my siblings got older, they had kids, I had kids.
So we're talking about at least 10 grandkids, cousins that always we always came together and just had fun. And all of a sudden she just seemed so weird. And I think I started to really see things in her that I really thought was like, hmm, that's kind of weird.
Like I said, back in May of 2019, she really just wasn't coherent like she was supposed to. And so she came and started staying with me and my husband, Brandon. And we woke up one morning and she was just walking around the hallway. And I don't think she even knew where she was.
And all of a sudden she fell. I think at this time I was barely 30. My husband, he's 29.
He's a year younger than me. So we're like, we don't know what to do. We don't know how to to process this. It's like your mom is the strongest person, you know, how is she walking around not really knowing who we are, what's going on. So I think that really that's something that I still haven't processed to this day, like the initial symptoms that she showed. And her favorite time of the year was December. And we had to call the ambulance for her because it was like, OK, she's not she's not the Jackie that we know. And the ambulance came and they checked her out. They asked her questions. This was May, June. And she's like, isn't it December?
Isn't it Christmas? And like my heart sank. It's like, OK, something is really wrong with her.
Something's wrong. And so she goes to the hospital. She's there for about 10 days.
They run Tez. I think her potassium was low. She seemed like she started to get better. And then we got the diagnosis that she had stage four breast cancer. And I think for me, I didn't want to believe it at first.
I'm not sure how my family views me, but I think that I guess they decided to just sit me down and tell me, OK, this is this is what it is. And so it was a process for me. Again, I say to process those things, to process what I just heard, because it's like an outer body. Yeah. Like this can't be real.
This can't be real. And so as time went on, August, September, October, we're going into Thanksgiving. We know that she has stage four cancer. She's only 54. She turned 55 in August, though. We're celebrating her birthday.
To me, honestly, I felt like just pretending like it wasn't happening. Like, let's just she's going to she's going to see her next birthday. We're going to keep celebrating her.
We're going to keep celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas. And she had gotten really sick right after Thanksgiving. But on Thanksgiving Day, she had come and we could tell she really wasn't feeling well at all. And so we would always go around the table for Thanksgiving and say, what are you thankful for? And so she stopped and it was her turn. And she said that I'm thankful for my children went around the room saying our names.
And the six of us, you know, in our family, we're not like lovey dovey or anything like that. But for her to literally call out all of my siblings names, call out my name and to say that she loves us. And that she cares and that she's thankful for us is something that I personally would never forget. I can picture her face right now and just sitting at that table like I'm thankful for Christina. And I'm like, oh, that's me. She's thankful for me.
But I remember that moment so vividly. And after Thanksgiving, I think that's when she really took a turn for the worse. She called me and she really couldn't get out of bed. I have a younger sister. She is 18 now. But at the time, I want to say she was 12. And so she was at home with her. And she really couldn't understand or really take everything that she saw.
So we tried to shield her. So we took my sister out of the house. I remember I drove my mom to the hospital. She told my youngest sister and I don't know if my youngest sister even knows this to this day. She said, I love you, Jayla.
My sister's name is Jayla. As she walked through the doors to my family's apartment and I took her to the hospital. And little did we know that was the last time that she would ever see my little sister and that my little sister would see her. And that's really the last time that I would see her fully coherent, have her walk through those hospital doors. And I don't want to say close the doors, but to me, it was like close the door to the person that I had viewed for 30 years of life.
Like that's not in the cards for me anymore. So I think that was a process. I think going in there and seeing her and visiting her as she was sick was very difficult. But I think when she did turn, have a turn for the worse, we got a call early in the morning.
I think it was a Sunday morning. I think a nurse had called my oldest sister and said, I think you need to come and see your mom right now because she's not doing well at all. They think she had had a stroke.
They're not really sure exactly what caused it. They don't know if it was because of the cancer that she had a stroke, but we went in there. Literally, they had mittens on her. She had reverted back to a child. So it's like she's looking at her hands, not understanding that these are my hands. She doesn't understand like this is my body. It's like a outer body experience.
I know some people say that once your parents get older, they revert back to being a child. It's like you have to take care of a newborn again. So when I first saw that, I walked right out of the hospital. I couldn't I could not see her in that way. And I think it took me about a day or two to go back up there and see her and see how she was doing. Couldn't talk anymore. I don't know if she could understand me or see me or know who I was.
But to see her laying in the hospital bed was definitely very eye opening. Like life is so precious. I think that we as humans walk around life thinking that not necessarily that we're immortal, but this wouldn't happen to me. Like I still have time, but we don't know when our last day is. And I think that really opened up my eyes to see that you've got to live, Christina. You've got to live. You've got to live for your husband. You have to live for your kids.
You have to live for your mom. And I think for me, one of those last days that she was in the hospital, me and my siblings couldn't go up there and see her. So we didn't really want to see her at all. We didn't want to see her in that way.
Yeah. And I especially didn't. And I think when she was really at the very end, my uncle said that he had somewhere he had to go. And so he was like, can somebody just come up there and be with her? Because she didn't want to be. They didn't want her to be by herself. And of course, I didn't want her to be by herself or pass on either. And so he called and said, does anybody want to come? Is anybody available? And nobody volunteered. So I said, OK, I'll do it.
I'll do it. And so I went up there to the hospital. I saw her laying in the bed.
I could tell like this was probably the end. She loved Wes Morgan. She loved listening to his music. I don't know.
He's a Christian artist. She loved him. So I played it for her. Talking to her like, Mom, I love you. Never really said things like that to each other. So it's like, that's very, it's very weird.
But in this moment, it's like, OK, this is real. So I want to be able to express myself to her. So I think I got there around 10 o'clock.
I want to say from 10 to six. I'm just holding her hand, letting her listen to music. Tony Evans was a really good person, and I listened to a very good pastor that really helped me throughout the whole process of processing everything that was going on. I let her listen to him and I was starting to get anxious, like anxious, like, OK, this seems like this might be it. I can't do this by myself.
Like, I can't just watch her do this. And it's just me in the room. So I called my uncle. I'm like, OK, I got to go. I got to go. So let's just go.
Let me just go. He said, OK, go ahead. He called me. I think he called all of the siblings about an hour later and said that she had passed. And to me, that was a relief.
Yeah. And I know there's one moment when we when we return, we're going to talk about how that was a relief to you and just how the Lord has used how the Lord has used this grief to grow you in motherhood and in your love for the Lord. Hope in the Morning is a listener sponsored program that encourages the weary, equips those who walk beside them and evangelizes the lost. If you want to partner with this ministry, visit Hope in the Morning dot org. And may you be filled with hope as you continue this episode of Hope in the Morning. Do you want to be equipped to help grieving people to learn what to say and what not to say from people who've walked through various trials throughout the month of April? With your donation of any amount, we'd like to send you a free copy of Hope in the Morning, a hopeful guide through grief. Be encouraged by their stories and equipped to offer hope. Visit us today at Hope in the Morning dot org. So, Christina, you were just saying that when you found out that your mom had passed, that that was almost a relief to you.
Can you explain kind of what you mean by that? I think for me, it was such a relief because in that short time span from her initially getting her diagnosis to her passing was one of the longest months of my life personally. I can't speak for my siblings, but for me, we're talking about waking up every day and anticipating like, when is this moment going to come?
Is it going to come? Is she going to get better? And seeing, of course, my youngest sibling suffer, like she is so traumatized.
She is so not necessarily depressed, but she has so much anxiety, like not knowing what's going on. And she had to live with my mom being afraid, like, OK, are we going to wake up and is she going to be dead? And you said she was around 12 years old at that time. She was around 12 years old at that time. So she's really young. And I didn't live with my mom, so I'm like, OK, well, at least I don't have to wake up and like have to look in the room and see if she's gone or not. But I know for my sister, that was probably so hard for her. And I also had another younger younger sibling, too.
I want to say she was about 19 or 20 when everything initially happened. So I think just trying to protect them, trying to protect my children, trying to protect my nieces and nephews, like because it was such a struggle. I think oftentimes people think that, OK, something happens and the person dies. That's like a shock.
I wouldn't necessarily say I would want that. But the time that we had in between that was so tedious to us. So, so tiring to where it was like, OK, I don't know if we can keep doing this. And of course, when a loved one is sick, everybody has to be in rotation, taking care of that person, dropping a lot of our daily lives. And I don't think people are necessarily real with themselves when they say, like, it's hard to upend your life and go and care for someone who really needs your help, even if it's not 24-7 the majority of the day. So were there people that stepped in and kind of helped your family or served your family during that time? What were some of the ways that were most helpful that actually ministered to you the most? I think because our family is so big, there were family members that could help all the time. So like I said, my mom had six kids. My uncle had two and my aunt, she had three.
So it was a lot of us that were able to do it. But just being able to go in there and see her in that way. And I don't want to paint a picture as like she was just death was on her face. But I think just seeing her from the way we were used to seeing her to now, like people being on chemo, they lose weight.
They start to look really sickly. But I will say that my family definitely stepped up. My siblings stepped up. My cousin stepped up.
My aunt. She was definitely so pivotal to helping her sister, trying to do her best. My uncle, who's a pastor, being able to walk us through how to deal with.
At the moment, we didn't think it was death, even though we know it was a possibility, but just caring for someone who was sick. Just like being there for each other, helping her, getting her food, buying the food so she wouldn't have to stress out about that. Taking care of my younger sisters, even though my younger sister was grown, she still needed help.
She was just now going into adulthood. And I think my youngest sister, everybody rallied around her. It's like, OK, we've got to protect her at all costs, because when I tell you that my youngest sister is the most sweetest, the most humblest, the nicest person you'll ever meet.
I don't want to be biased, but I've never seen a child that hardly ever got in trouble, a child that just was so willing to do what everybody else wanted to do and put herself on the back burner. And I think she sounds like your mom, my mom. She got that from my mom and mom.
And it's like my mom had that character trait, but that just engulfed my sister Jayla. And so we really tried to rally around her. And just going back to the whole being relieved by it, I think in that moment it was like, OK, we're here now. This moment happened. And now, since we have that phone call or text or however we received it, can't really remember specifically if I got a call or a text, but just being able to say, OK, this happened. So now we have to move to the next thing.
Yeah, I think that's where I say the relief came from. And for me. I am not one to be able to deal with the emotional drain that comes from having to.
Plan our funeral, like get the clothes together. I think I started to go into after the relief part is the denial. I didn't deny the fact that she was no longer here. I feel like I did not deny the fact that all these things needed to be done and they had to be done. And I just couldn't wrap my head around that. Kind of overwhelming. Overwhelming.
I, I don't think people talk enough about after the person passes, how you have to talk about them in a way like they're not here, even though it really just happened. Yeah. So it's like, OK, you got to get this. You got to get that. We have to call these people.
We have to call that person. But you can't sit and just be like, OK, I need the time to just sit here and process this. I need time to just think about it to to make sure that it is real. I think for me, like I said, it was like going back and forth. You waking up and it's not. But then as the minutes go on, because I'm not even going to say the hours went on the minutes when I was like, OK, this is real.
Yeah. I can picture us going in her apartment and knowing that she's not walking through those doors anymore. And then the funeral home asking what outfit are you guys going to choose for her? We need the outfit by a certain time. And I don't like to be put on the time limit.
I'm a stay at home mom. So it's like I'll work at my own pace. Yeah. And I think my whole mind was like, OK, I can't do it.
Yeah. Every step makes it more real. And I think that it's part of like what the Lord does to protect us.
And our grief is that he almost puts us in a bubble of things, not feeling like reality for a time. And, you know, one of the one of the things that I've learned recently is just that grief is it's an extension of your love for someone. You know, and you would never you would never say to someone, oh, you still love your mom. You've had her for 30 years. Like you would never say that.
And so it really it doesn't even matter how much time goes by. You're going to you're going to grieve them to some extent and little things are going to remind you of them because your love ran deep. And so now that they're gone, grief is is an expression of that love.
It's the way that your heart expresses that love. And how how would you say that that the Lord rooted you in your faith? Like were there were there verses or hymns that kind of came to mind continuously during your journey of the last several years without your mom?
That maybe when you're having a hard day that he brings to mind his goodness or the fact that he will he will sustain you? It's funny you say that because in this moment, I'm like, OK, what's the song that you always love to sing? I'm not a singer. I don't sing, but I love to sing around the house only to my husband knows this.
I only sing around him and my kids. And for me, I love hymns. Like to me, those are the staple songs that really they can cut deep, but they can really get you into. And in my own terms, the nitty gritty of how God can literally work in you. He can restore you.
He can make you so much more resilient than you ever thought you could be. And so the first hymn that popped in my head was Love Lifted Me. And so I always sing the first verse.
And my husband was like, yeah, I like that song. I said, that's my favorite hymn. I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore, verily deeply staying within, sinking to rise no more. But the master of the sea heard my despairing cry from the waters lifted me.
Now safe am I. So I said, oh, my gosh, every time I sing that song, every time I hear it, like looking at the words, it's like that's it. Like that's how you deal with death. That's how you deal with your mom passing. That's how you deal with every step that you had to take. I'm sinking, God.
Yeah, I'm sinking. And I'm so far from where you need me to be, where I need to be in order to feel like you're here with me. But he said, I'm right here and I'm going to lift you up. So, yeah, that's one of my favorite, favorite hymns.
I love that. And, you know, honestly, what you were saying, too, it brings to mind the fact that even in the Psalms, it's like one of the things that becomes cathartic to us is the fact that we we have Jesus as an interceder. We no longer we don't have to go to a priest. We can go directly to the Lord. And we can say to him, I'm drowning in this.
And I feel like I'm incapable of sustaining myself at all. And just like scripture talks about, it's like when when we are at our weakest point, it allows us to put God's strength on display because we can say, God, I'm nothing without you. And he will reach up and rescue us. And when he hears, you know, he hears the pleas of our heart. He sees the laments in our tears when sometimes words just cannot be had, especially when you feel like you're drowning in that. He he is not removed from our sorrows.
And I agree with you. I think that the hymns, one of the things that makes him so rich and so powerful is the fact that they're full of theology. They're full of the richness of who God is. And so my grandma once told me, I think it's in Habakkuk, it talks about how God placed us on a higher ground. And so my grandma would remind me that, you know, Jesus takes us out of our circumstances and allows us to see things from a different perspective so that we can know we are safe in his embrace, that these circumstances, what we face in this life is not all there is. And I know from talking with you before that your mom loved the Lord and that she passed a rich faith to you as well and a rich trust in the Lord. And, you know, we we have this beautiful hope that you will be reunited, reunited with your mom in perfection.
You know that your mom is there's no more tears and no more pain. And, you know, but while we are here on this earth, we can trust that Jesus hears you, that he bends low when when you cry and that he will rescue you. And so, Christina, thank you so much for sharing your testimony today. And I'm just so thankful to call you a friend and a sister in Christ. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You know, I love you.
I love you, too. Thank you for joining this episode of Hope in the Morning, transforming trials and tears into testimonies of hope. Hope in the Morning is a nonprofit ministry that seeks to encourage the hurting, equip those who walk beside them and evangelize the lost with the hope of Jesus Christ. To partner with our ministry or to make a donation in your loved one's honor, please visit HopeInTheMorning.org. Your donation helps keep these stories of hope on the air and helps tangibly meet the needs of the hurting. Have you ever walked through the deep suffering of a friend and been at a loss for what to say? How can you comfort someone when they've just lost a loved one or been diagnosed with cancer? Join us on Hope in the Morning to hear testimonies of people who've gone through life's hardest trials and share what you can do to serve others in similar circumstances. To learn more, visit us at HopeInTheMorning.org.
