My mom recently passed away after battling cancer for about 14 months. I’m thankful for her faith in Christ that gives us the peace of knowing her pain has been exchanged with joy. When my dad died three years ago, my mom said at the time that she wished that people would share eulogies or say “all the nice things” to people before they die rather than wait until afterwards. So a few weeks ago I wrote out an extended letter that included this eulogy, as well as more personal memories and encouragements, and gave it to my mom. I’m thankful I did, and would encourage others to find ways in person and on paper to share your love for people before their death.
Here’s a condensed version of that eulogy I shared at her funeral yesterday.
My Mom’s Legacy that Will Last
When my mom first received the diagnosis that she had stage-four cancer, it was unclear how long she would live, but it was communicated that it likely wouldn’t be more than a couple of years at most. Sometime around receiving the news, my mom commented that she would never be able to open the art studio she had always dreamed of. I think part of why she dreamed of opening an art studio was she viewed that as part of making a legacy or lasting impact.
But what seemed clear to me was that her legacy would continue, not just in paintings, but even more so in people. Her legacy is in her kids and grandkids that she helped shape.
One example is my love for God’s creation that my mom instilled in me. Her love for art, beauty, and nature taught me to pay attention to the details of God’s creation, to notice the uniqueness of flowers, the glory of sunsets, the joy of wading in rivers, and sitting outside and just enjoying the birds, the trees, and a breeze. This Summer, my mom and my kids were able to enjoy seeing the Smoky Mountains and the animals and beauty there. She took Lily to flower gardens, and her last outing was taking Wyatt to a goat farm. Every time I take my kids creek stomping, I feel like I’ve passed on a bit of the “country life” my mom appreciated so much. Her legacy lives on in our family’s love for God’s creation.
Obviously art was a big part of her life. I grew up seeing my mom’s paintings and drawings, not just on canvases but milk jugs, saws, walls, bedrooms, church baptismals, and anything else she could find. Her love for arts and crafts was something my kids always enjoyed doing with her. She would teach Lily and Wyatt how to draw or find crafts to do with them. I often find my kids sitting at their little table drawing pictures or cutting paper to make a craft, and I see my mom in them.
I love how she was always willing to get down on my kids level, playing with them on the floor, laughing with them, doing silly games, dressing up like pirates, and filling our home with more projects and crafts than we knew what to do with.
But the most important part of my mom’s legacy is her Christian faith. None of us are perfect, and every Christian wishes they lived out their faith all the time, but my had a genuine faith in the Lord that she passed down to me, and I’m trying to pass down to my kids. Growing up, she took me to church, even when I didn’t want to be there, and there were so many Bible verses and songs that she planted in me. She prayed for her kids and grandkids and wanted us to know the truths of God’s Word.
She endured many trials in her life, and yet she often testified how God always took care of Her, provided for Her, helped her, and was faithful to her. She knew God’s grace to her despite her sins and imperfections. That grace alone is what she rested in. She knew God’s faithfulness over the decades that includes the highs and lows in life.
Despite the hard things in life, she walked through, it was this love for the Lord that caused her to walk alongside other women who were divorced or who had walked through trials. She even used her art as a means of teaching and ministering to women. She spent years as a Sunday school teacher, VBS worker, and volunteered in any other way she was needed.
Her greatest desire was to see her own kids and grandkids know God, and so every Christmas she wanted to tell a story with us all together that communicated who Jesus really is and why the Christmas story matters. I have a great pic of my mom sitting at the fireplace during one of these Christmas moments, with Lily as a toddler, just sitting at her feet listening to her. It’s a picture of her spiritual legacy and her great desire to have kids and grandkids who not only spend eternity with Christ, but who know Him in this life and find their hope and joy in Him.
Even in her cancer journey, I’ve seen her fight the battle of faith. There has been a lot of pain and hard days, but I’ve seen my mom trust in the Lord. She noticed God’s provision in big and small ways, she rehearsed the promises of God, and she never lost hope even when the pain was crushing.
She kept a notebook over the last 14 months about her cancer journey. On one page she wrote:
“When the day is done, when my time ends, I pray I have finished the course well, for I can say that He has held me fast. Jesus has been my friend and redeemer, my all in all, and I will meet him face-to-face. And on my last day I can say, “to God be the glory,” because He kept me, and my times are in His hand. And this I know that I love my grandchildren and children above what can be measured.”
Then on another page with a short summary of both her cancer journey and life that read, “I have been well loved.” She trusted in Christ and set her hope on Christ all the way to the end, and even now, her legacy continues as we put our hope in Christ even as we grieve losing her.
Her legacy is her life’s testimony that God has been faithful and gracious to her, and His Word is the way we know Him and find strength in Him. This great legacy of love and faith won’t stop with her death, but it lives on in us who share her faith and love for the Lord.
We are her legacy.
The Joining of Grief and Gratitude
One thing I learned with the passing of my dad three years ago is there’s never enough time. You always wish you had more time with the people you love. I’d love another five or ten years of my mom around, but I’m thankful for this past year we’ve had and all the fun and meaningful things we’ve been able to do after learning about her cancer. I’ve been able to take a lot of pictures, capturing memories to look back on. I’m thankful I was able to take my mom and kids to Gatlinburg and the Smoky Mountains and have a final trip together. I’m thankful for some of the meaningful conversations we had in light of knowing her death was imminent. I’m thankful for each day God gave her and each time my family got to be with her. These are all gifts. My heart is heavy with grief and loss because it’s also so full or gratitude and love.
My favorite novel is Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry. It’s a book about grief and gratitude, and how both move forward together as life moves on. The main character, Hannah reflects:
“I began to know my story then. Like everybody’s, it was going to be the story of living in the absence of the dead. What is the thread that holds it all together? Grief, I thought for a while. And grief is there sure enough, just about all the way through…I have never been far from it. But grief is not a force and has no power to hold. You only bear it. Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery.”
While death is my mom’s gain, being freed from pain and with the Lord, it is our loss. There will be an absence from her love and her presence, but that absence will include both grief and gratitude. She will be missed and loved, but she will not be forgotten. I’m thankful for her love, her legacy, her testimony, for the memories shared, and most of all, that we will meet again.
In C. S. Lewis’s book The Last Battle, the narrator offers these words that frame death for a believer in Christ:
“And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”[1]
This is a fitting description of how my mom’s story has not ended, but it has only gotten started.
Theologian D. A. Carson talked about his own impending death to cancer, saying it’s nothing that a good resurrection can’t fix. I believe that because my mom trusted in Christ alone as her savior, and because I have too, that one day all believers will be raised to life with Christ on a new earth with resurrected bodies forever. Believers not only meet their glorious and gracious God, but we are reunited on a new Earth and spend eternity together. There’s coming a great reunion Jesus will host for those who trusted in Him where we will feast and laugh and play and paint and hike the New Earth and enjoy God and all His gifts together again. I don’t think that’s a fairytale, a fable, or hopeful thinking, I take it as gospel truth from the God who promised to right the wrongs of this Earth, to remove the stain of sin, and to dwell with His people forever.
Goodbyes for believers are temporary. The legacy and love live on, and then one day, because of the resurrection hope we celebrate, we’ll be together for eternity. So there’s hope, joy, and gratitude that carries through in the midst of pain, sorrow, and loss.
[1] Lewis, The Last Battle, 210–11.
indycrowe 
Dear Dustin, You loved your Mom well and wh
Beautiful and thoughtful words, Dustin. Thank you for sharing them with us!
I am amazed at your God given talent to write. But then why should I be amazed? I just keep thinking about the little baby of the family at Shelbyville. 🙂 Your words were beautiful at the service, and they are beautiful here. It fills my heart to know how pleased she was that God was using you. All the glory belongs to Him!!! Praise God!