Another Sunday Alone

Another Sunday church service ended.  I walked to my car, and drove toward a drive-thru, wanting to get the lunch thing behind me. Why did Sundays seem so hard? Then I allowed memories of past years to float through my mind.

Growing up on a farm in Southern Mississippi, Saturday was a preparation day for Sunday. We mopped the floors, dusted the furniture, and made certain our clothes were ready for Sunday. We shined our shoes and cooked at least a part of the meal that we'd share together after Sunday's services. Even my thoughts, made me recall how incredilble Mother's fried chicken tasted and what wonderful meals we shared.

Then when I married at age 19, the day was once again a family affair...first my husband and I spent it together and then as our children came along, the tradition of the big family meal continued. Many Sunday's we would  invite friends home from church to eat with us.

The years flew by and our kids grew up, and we became empty nesters. We started a new tradition...each Sunday after church we went out to eat..sometimes with friends and sometimes just the two of us but once again it was a time to enjoy and share together.

July of 2002 brought a new twist to our lives. My husband of 32 years was diagnosed with Melanoma and one Sunday in July of 2003, we shared our last Sunday meal together...and by August of 2003, my sweet husband was gone.

Now  I was trying to learn to live this new life as a widow. As I waited in the drive-thru line, I saw couples strolling into the restaurant holding hands. I struggled to fight back the tears, knowing that had been me not so many months before. I wanted to let down the window and say "Do you know how blessed you are? Do you know how  precious this time is? Do you know that everything is just for a season? Please, please cherish each other and these moments!"

Yes, my journey was taking me through a new season of life, and I didn't like it. But I knew many had walked this path before me, and they had survived.  I would, too, with God's help and one day I'd find a new norm. Until then, I would keep putting one foot in front of the other and thanking God for what I once had!! I'd been blessed...thank you, Lord, for all the Sunday's that were filled with joy and fellowship. Help me to recognize Your new blessings as they come and to live with a thankful and expectant heart.
By Pam Whitley

In Pieces

My two precious grandsons sit on the quilt
that I made for my son for Christmas of 2003!

It would be my first Christmas without my beloved husband of thirty-two years. I found myself in a store buying flowers for his new tombstone as I watched others buying decorations for their Christmas trees. I found myself sorting through the remnants of his life as others prepared for family get-togethers. I knew I must find something constructive to do in the midst of all the pain.
Walking into our closet, memories flooded my soul as I saw five of my husband Mike’s favorite shirts. When our son, Ben, was in college in the early 90’s, the big flannel shirt became the fashion craze. I purchased two or three of those heavy ‘big shirts’(as they were called) for Christmas for Ben and every time he came home for the weekend, Mike would raid his closet and come out wearing one of those shirts. It became a joke. For the next few years, I bought Ben and Mike identical flannel shirts for Christmas. Ten years later, those shirts had continued to be Mike’s favorites. In fact, as he started chemo and felt chilled much of the time, he lived in those shirts.
Taking the shirts off their hangers, I laid them in a corner of my sewing room. I knew I must do something very special with them but it took a few days to get the courage to cut into the shirts. Perhaps dismantling them bore too much of a parallel to what had happened to our lives.
I found I could get several 8-inch wide strips from the front and the backs of the shirts as well as from the sleeves. Then I cut those strips into as many squares as I could, and soon I was sewing the squares back together and a quilt began to emerge.
As friends looked at my work in progress, they commented on what great choices I had made for my color combinations. Actually, I had not chosen them. They were just all of his shirts, and together they formed a beautiful color palette.
It seemed impossible to finish my project by Christmas, but I was determined. For
such a sad Christmas, there just had to be something special to give Ben, and I knew this was it. I asked God to give me the strength to complete my project and day-by-day the quilt grew larger. I sewed the labels of the shirts in some of the squares and deliberately cut strips with
pockets so that it would always be evident that the quilt was made from shirts. To finish off the project, I bordered the quilt in navy and then I machine quilted the whole
thing in a free hand motion style. I was able at times to turn my free hand motion
movements into words.
Within the quilt I wrote Whitley, 2003, Mike, Pam, Ben, Steph, Jack, and Will. I wanted this quilt to be a treasure for the generations to come. I could envision one day our grandsons searching the borders for the names woven into the design and Ben sharing fondly the memories of his dad and the shirts
On Christmas, as our son opened his gift, tears welled up in his eyes and the look on his face and the hug I received was salve to my hurting heart and I knew God was at work using the shattered pieces of our lives to bring forth treasure in the darkness.
by Pam Whitley

The Diagnosis That Changed Our Lives

Written One Year After Mike's Death - by Pam
I can say that I honestly never thought about the possibility of becoming a widow…. most women probably don’t …..at least not when ones spouse is healthy and fairly young. Perhaps we are just too busy living to think of the possibility of such a thing. But one evening after my husband played golf, he showered and noticed a knot under his right arm. It hadn't been there the evening before. A few doctors appointments later and one surgery, on July 5, 2002, our doctor called  with devastating news. As my husband and I both listened on the phone,  Dr. Deck said, “I am so sorry to tell you this but lab reports on the tissue show it to be Malignant Melanoma.”

We both gasped in disbelief. After all, we had already fought Melanoma and knew it was the deadliest form of skin cancer. Only 15 months before, I'd taken care of my sister the last week of her life as she lost her battle to this deadly disease. To make matters worse, we knew that in my sister’s case, the Melanoma went to the brain. I can remember my husband and I both standing totally stunned as we received the diagnosis. We hung up the phone and just held each other and sobbed, knowing that life as we'd known it was over and our world would never be the same. We called our son and told him that we needed to talk to him. We couldn’t deliver such news over the phone. Driving over to his house, we rode in shocked silence. Arriving, we sat down and broke the news as gently as we could. I remember us circling Mike and praying over him and asking God to sustain us.

As the days went by, I thought that I couldn't bare this diagnosis. I had flash backs of my sister’s death, of her fever going to 106, of meeting her at MD Anderson on Christmas day of 2000, of how sick she became and how fast the cancer spread.

“Oh Lord,” I cried, “I can’t bare this! Please, Lord, I can’t!” And my constant prayer became, “Heal Mike! Show me, Lord, what I can do!” And thus began my constant research of Melanoma online. I attacked the news just as I had the news 24 years earlier when our daughter had suffered brain damage. I thought I could make her well if I believed hard enough, fought hard enough, found the right combination of vitamins and once again, I veered into that path of the “fix it lady,” this time as a wife instead of a mom. I researched night and day. I juiced veggies, I bought supplements, I wouldn't let this cancer take my beloved Mike. But as hard as we fought, there came the day that we found the Melanoma had gone to the brain and the treatments were not working nor our radical efforts…. we had to face the fact that this disease was probably going to end in death. AND thank God, Mike knew Whom He believed in and began to look toward Home with courage and Peace.
I, on the other hand, thought I couldn't face losing Mike. I thought I couldn't go on if I was left alone. I thought I'd die too and a part of me did die that August day as Mike breathed his last breath. Yet in my heart, I knew I had to go on and that God’s Grace would be sufficient. I learned to ‘gut it up’ as Mike used to tell our son. I made myself walk where I didn’t want to walk. 

One of my hardest things was going to church alone. That was something Mike and I always did together….I hated going into the midst of couples and feeling Mike’s absence so keenly. Each Sunday as I drove into the church parking lot, a new wave of grief would almost take my breath away. But I knew if I was ever to be whole again, I had to face the pain and walk through it. 

I'm still facing the pain and walking through it one day at a time. It'll soon be a year since I hugged my precious Mike good-bye ….and I can say, I've made it.
Has it been hard? You bet, it's been awful….yet in the pain, I've grown. I'm stronger and I know one day I'll be able to breathe-in without the gnawing hole that is still in my heart. I know that God is going to bring me through this trial and that He, in His Grace, is equipping me to help others that'll walk here. I'll keep putting one foot in front of the other, with my eyes focused on Him. He's able to do abundantly above that which I'm able to imagine. I'll choose to continue to trust an all knowing God with an unknown future as I daily cry out to Him to sustain me.  I'll trust Him to do that which He has promised…to carry me when I can’t walk, to make the crooked way straight before me, and to sustain me with His power when the night is long. I'll believe that the best is yet to be…and one day I will look into my Father’s eyes, and I'll  walk those streets of gold, and  see Mike again! Yes, I'll keep putting one foot in front of the other until I, too, finish my course and arrive Home!