Rita, GO!

First off, the first anniversary of my sister Rita’s homecoming was Thursday. My brother-in-law Jesse told my mother (in a phone conversation late that night) that he couldn’t even bear to be in their home.

My sister, who had been working on her income tax that day and appeared perfectly okay, suddenly took very ill. She was asleep in her bed upstairs and came down around 11 p.m. in a panic, telling her husband she couldn’t see and she felt like she was about to pass out.

The paramedics came and at 3 in the morning, sitting outside the Mansfield Hospital’s ICU, her husband and daughter were told they should go home and get some rest because Rita appeared to be stabilizing and was likely out of the woods even though her heart had stopped earlier.

That same morning around 8:20 I got a shocking call from my mother that Rita was in the ICU and “not doing well.” My mom was already driving from Akron down to Mansfield to the hospital. I spent the next hour in prayer, at one point calling my boss to tell her I would be late for work.

Nobody knows this but in that endless prayer that hour, with my brain in utter agony running around all the palpable fears, I prayed, “Rita, go, go, go! C’mon Rita, Go!”

Only our family knows what a horrible siege she had been under physically and mentally for the past year, even though in the month leading up to her death she seemed to really have regained her mental health.

The second call from my mother came at 9:42, informing me that my sister had just died. My mom got there only about 30 seconds before her death.

Until that morning wake-up call, neither one of us knew anything was wrong with Rita. I was the one to call my brother and give him the absolutely flooring news. He had NO idea anything was going on.

The doctors told Jesse and Christine (my niece) all about an undetected infection that was the certain cause of death, but they were in too much in shock to hear any of the details. The death certificate simply said she died of a “stomach infection.” She was 48 years old.

What’s remarkable is I love her more now than I ever did when she was alive. I really, really SEE now just what a wonderful person she was—all through her life. I’m eternally grateful, among so many other things, to know that she was such a solid, solid Believer who looked to Jesus Christ just like I do. He was her very best friend.

All along, we both would share with each other how extremely grateful we were to have had the Christian upbringing as young children, thanks to our parents, our immediate family and family friends, the Akron Baptist Temple and the missionary stint we had as kids in Ecuador with HCJB, serving as a family in the same mission field as missionary legends Jim Eliot and Nate Saint. What a gift!

*****

Leading up to last Wednesday night, folks here at the Nathalie Salmon House were carefully monitoring the local weather forecast. Thanks to a board member’s knowledge of the John Hancock Tower’s “Charity of the Month” program, we were given a $3000 dinner on the 95th floor of the skyscraper which included 30 diners, both residents and staff. Of course we wanted to get a great sunset, which we did!

Just trying to say I bought into the hype yesterday and the day before that we could have tornado like weather here on the lakefront and I made the regrettable decision to go home after the morning church service and lunch with my friend Donna.

Jordan has now concluded a great series on the Antichrist that I will be sure to summarize here. Thankfully the weather, which did arrive at around 5:20 here, did not cut out internet reception for the evening service. It was a fantastic study, and I do admit I like learning as much as I can about the Adversary, given what a hostile-demented-spiritually-evil-world it’s becoming—or so it seems?