Now that Dad was gone, what about my mother? Her Alzheimer’s had progressed to the point where she could not live alone in the Babbit, Minnesota home. At seventy years old, she was otherwise healthy. We were able to move her to an assisted living facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they initially thought her mind was too far gone and she needed more than assistance in living; she required full nursing care. I was coming to admire my father even more for the level of care he had to provide for her before he died.

My mother was quintessentially motherly: she made our meals growing up, bought us great Christmas and birthday presents, and drove us kids to our countless sports and extracurricular activities. When I was in college, she would occasionally send a care package. She was not the type to show much affection, but she was reliable and provided a safe and stable home, absent of the kind of dysfunction many other homes experience. And she was faithful to Dad, always showing respect and support for him.

Church was ingrained in her from childhood, as though Roman Catholicism was part of her DNA. So it was difficult for her to accept that her daughter was twice married and divorced; her older son, Mike, married a protestant who worked for the Billy Graham association; her second son (me) married and became a preacher outside of Catholicism; and the youngest son married a young lady raised in a Baptist church. That was hard for her to take, but in the end she came reluctantly to accept it—we were still her children. But she could never talk freely about God with us.

Mom lived out her last six years in a secure nursing care facility in St. Paul, Minnesota, near my brother Mike, who visited her regularly. Twice a year, I flew from my home in Canada and then later from New York to visit her, even though she quickly regressed into a vegetative stage and could no longer recognize me or any other family. Those later trips were challenging, particularly when she could no longer communicate and her eyes would stare ahead, open but glazed over. The last time I visited her, the nurse told me she was healthy and strong for her age; only her mind was the problem. She could live for many more years. I prayed with Mom every visit and read from Scripture to her, even though she was unresponsive.

In my last prayer, I asked the Lord to give Mom a moment of cognitive awareness of what I was saying, and proceeded to share the love of Jesus Christ with her. She had been a born-and-bred, lifelong Catholic, but her religious belief seemed to be of the ritualistic variety and not a personal relationship with Christ. I told her about Jesus dying on the cross for hers and my sin and about God’s love, forgiveness, and grace. Then I prayed specifically for two things: that she would turn to God now in her time of need, and that He would then quickly take her home to heaven.

Leaving that nursing home in the summer of 1995, I fully expected to make many more visits. But the day after I returned home, my brother called to tell me Mom had died. A huge relief came over me, but not because I would not have to travel back there twice every year. That was no bother, and I saw it as carrying on the model my father had set for me (and my siblings) to care for Mom. No, the relief came from knowing my prayer was heard. If God had answered the second part of my prayer and did it quickly, then He must have answered the first part, my mother turning to Him in her time of need. I rest in His assurance that I will someday see her again when I, too, transition home to heaven.