God's gift to me on the anniversary of Mom's passing.

It has been on my mind a little bit the past couple weeks.  Thoughts of all that time in the hospital.  Thoughts of her quickly changing from from vibrant, to sedentary, to unresponsive in six weeks.  Thoughts of the fiery pain in her body and in my heart.  Thoughts of singing to her as a family in those last hours of her life.  God has taught us so much through that trial.

I have tucked a lot of this away out of self preservation.  I don't like to hurt, and so I put it away in one of the remote closets of my heart.  Yesterday, however, God wanted me to remember.  He gave me a little gift through an unsuspecting Sam's Club worker.

As I was leaving the store, I noticed the name tag of the person checking the receipts at the door.  "How's Marlene doing today?", I asked.  After taking my receipt she replied, "Good Ter Bear." (pronounced t-air bear).  I stopped in my tracks.  I couldn't believe my ears.  You see, this was mom's nick name for me.  No one else called me by that name.  I haven't heard it for two years.  For a moment I thought that maybe she knew me.  I said in astonishment, "What?"  She again replied again with the name Ter Bear.  I asked her how she knew my nick name and she simply motioned the my name printed on the receipt and said that since my name was Terry she wanted to call me Ter Bear.

This still baffles me that a complete stranger would call another complete stranger a nick name.  Let alone the very nickname given by a mother who saw Jesus almost exactly two years ago.  And here's another point that I find too close for coincidence.  My mother's name was Darlene and the worker's name was Marlene.  She was a younger grandmother which also reminds me of mom.

The rest of the night was joyfully somber as a mix of memories and awe of God flooded my mind.  I called my brother Tom and relayed the story as we both choked back the tears.  It was as if Jesus was saying, "She's here with me. She says hi."

Thank you Jesus for touching my heart.  You are soooo good.