BY ADAM T. GILBERT

T WAS MY TWELFTH YEAR OF LIFE. I WAS pedaling my bicycle as fast as I could from school to the hospital where my mom was recovering. It was a scary time for my mom and me. She had just undergone surgery that was supposed to help her with her lifelong struggle with obesity. Although this surgery wasn't her first, it was the first since I was born.

My mom never promised me a happy ending no matter how much I begged. I only wanted to hear her say that she would not die. "With any surgery there are risks," she would tell me. The thought was too painful to entertain. As far as I could imagine, it would not be possible for me to live without her. On occasional nights I would wake in a cold sweat from a nightmare that she had died, my fear being cured only by running to her bedroom and wrapping my arms around her.

My mom always told me that she was both my mom and dad. I had never even seen my real dad. He left her as soon as he found out she was pregnant. To this day I don't even know his name. My mom was my family, and I was hers.

Regardless of my fears, I knew the decision to follow through with the surgery was hers to make. She made every effort to help me understand the surgery as well as the doctor had described it to her. The procedure was called a biliopancreatic diversion (BPD). The objective of the operation was to enable food to pass through my mom's digestive system without it being absorbed and stored as fat. This was supposed to allow her to lose weight and keep it off. After being confronted with all the probable health conditions she could develop because of her obesity, she opted for the surgery.

The day of her operation I pedaled hurriedly toward the hospital. Warm beads of sweat began to trickle down my cheek as I watched the reflective white line pass by my bike's front wheel. With each pedal I knew that I was that much closer to the hospital. Two more uphill treks and one more corner, and I was home free. Walking through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital and being welcomed by the strong breeze of cool air, I felt I couldn't get to her room fast enough. My anxiety was eased by the nurse's smile as she held open the door to my mom's room.

So many questions were racing through my head as I walked to her bed. I wanted to wake her up the same way I did on those scary nights after those nightmares, but I didn't want to hurt her. Holding back all the questions that I couldn't wait to ask, I woke her up with the words "Hey, Mom, how are you feeling?"

"Like I've just been run over by a Mack truck," she replied. Then opened the floodgate of questions, which she was probably too tired to answer but did anyway. My worries and fears began to fade just like the burn in my muscles did when I looked down the other side of a hill I had just climbed on my bike. Just as I was ready to coast through life with my mom's hand in mine, I asked, "How did the surgery go?" Before she answered this question, I was beginning to relax in the thought that there was going to be a happy ending. Then she spoke.

"When the doctor was working on me, he found cancer on my liver," my mom explained. "He said that this was probably caused by one of my previous surgeries, and he wasn't able to do the BPD. He wants to go back in and take care of my cirrhosis in two to three days." I knew then that the chance of her dying was greater because of her having to go back under the knife. I had climbed a hill of worry and fear, only to find that on the other side of this hill was a mountain, and my heart now felt as if it were underneath its crushing weight. Tears poured from our eyes as we sat there holding each other with unspoken acknowledgment that this could be one of our last moments together. "Be brave, Adam," she told me as she tried to control the shakiness in her voice. "Don't miss me before I'm gone." Her effort to preserve our time together seemed ineffective to me.

"I'm not going to be missing you, because you're not going to leave me," I responded stubbornly, not willing to accept the possibility. My mom replied, "The only One who will never leave you is Jesus," These words didn't hit home. Not yet.

That night I returned to the home where I was staying during this whole ordeal. This was with my mother's dearest friends, who had recently brought her into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Mom had stated that if anything should happen to her, she wanted me to live with them. In my desperate search for reassurance, I would ask my guardian parents if there was any real possibility of my mom dying. All I wanted to hear was "No, she will be OK." But instead I heard, "Your mother is going to go through another surgery. It will be very hard on her body, so there will be a possibility of her not recovering."

I was given another dose of reality for which I felt so unprepared.

Second Surgery
Two sleepless nights later the day arrived for her to have her second surgery. Again I rode my bicycle from school to the hospital, hoping to be able to see her, but learned that she was still in surgery. I then returned to what I hoped to be only my temporary home and went to bed for another sleepless night. That night I was tossing and turning with a burning desire to go to the hospital and see if my mom was OK. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer, and at 2:00 in the morning I woke my guardian father and asked him to take me to the hospital. I stood at the door with a tear-stained face, waiting for him to get ready.

Upon asking at the hospital's front desk which room my mom was in, I found out she was in the intensive-care unit. I knew that this unit was for taking care of patients who were unstable. I pushed the call button located under a sign that read "Limited Visitation," which was beside the door of the ICU. "May I help you?" The voice reminded me of a fast-food drive-through.

"I would like to see Sheila Gilbert," I said with as much authority as I could muster.
"I'm sorry, sir, but visiting hours are during the day." I thought that sounded like a no, and I was not going to take no for an answer.

"I have to see my mother," I replied with even more determination. The next 30 seconds seemed like 30 minutes. With no response from the nurse, I began to contemplate drastic measures. I was about to take action when the door opened, and a nurse took me by the hand. She led me to the open door of my mom's room. The nurse may have said something to me concerning my mom's condition, but it would have been in vain, because as soon as my eyes landed on her, the rest of the world disappeared.

Time seemed to stop as I stood in the presence of my mom. The realization that this could be my last time with her stabbed through me like a dull knife. I saw all the tubes that invaded her and watched as her chest rose and fell to the sound of a breathing machine. The only thing standing between her and death was a life-support machine made by the hands of human beings. The same kind of hands I had now learned not to trust. I placed my hands on her cold, placid arm. My pain squeezed her arm as I demanded she wake up. I pleaded with her, but she gave me no response. Silently I stood there with her, trying to ignore her machine-dependent breathing and the smell of all the plastic tubes. Suddenly my mom seemed to wake. She began to speak, but the words only confused and frightened me. While the nurses were pulling me out of the room, I lost all hope of a happy ending. This forced me to say goodbye.

A Lonely Night
I returned to bed that night feeling the whole spectrum of negative emotions. My pain-filled heart screamed the questions: "How could you leave me, Mom? Don't you love me more than that?" She was the only one I could trust. All my life she was the only one I had depended on. Fear, anger, disappointment, worry, resentment, discouragement, grief . . . My heart was one big melting pot in which they all brewed.

So many questions ran through my head, but only one had an answer that would change the rest of my life. "If I can't depend on even my own mother, then whom can I depend on?" The question put a halt to all my feelings. Then I remembered my mom's reply as if she were right there, saying it to me again. "The only One who will never leave you is Jesus." Jesus was real to me. I had seen Him in the heart of my mom and in the hearts of my guardian parents who were willing to take me in. And there in my bed, near the end of a very long night, I accepted Jesus into my life as the only one on whom I could depend forever. A seed my mother had planted in me three days before began to grow.

My grieving continued, but I had renewed hope of a happy ending and a future with Jesus. Two days after I had said goodbye to Mom her body was finally disconnected from the life-support system. A memorial service was held a week later.

Taking Care of His Gift
The death of my mom carved a canyon in my heart. I decided to let Jesus fill it. The Holy Spirit began immediately working in my life. First, He gave me a reason to live. I realized that my priority on this earth was to glorify God's name.

My first conviction came to me as I was walking to my new home from the school bus stop. The half-mile trek down the dirt road gave me plenty of time to think and talk with God. I used part of this time to recover from the hurtful things my peers said to me because of my weight. This particular day, though, I asked myself, "How can I glorify God's name if I'm not taking care of what He gave me?" I remembered the last time I weighed myself. It was while I was waiting with my mom in her doctor's office. My mom and I were both shocked when the scale read 221 pounds. At that point I knew that I was overweight, but it took my walk with God down that dirt road to realize that part of my life needed to change. Relying on God's power enabled me, at 12 years of age, to change my lifestyle from careless eating habits and lack of exercise to one of eating to live instead of living to eat and of developing discipline in an exercise routine. After the first year of this lifestyle change, I found myself 70 pounds lighter. Experiencing this change in my life, along with many others, allowed me to see more clearly how much Jesus wanted to share the "weight" of my burdens.

The Holy Spirit is as the wind: He can be felt but not seen except in His changing power. This same power is what God used to comfort me after I lost my only parent because of obesity. He didn't stop there. No. God goes all the way. He filled the new void in my life with His love and led me off the path that would have ended in the same early death that took my mom.

"Blessed are those who mourn . . ." Our compassionate God gives His gift of blessing to all who mourn, yet He will not force us to accept it. My blessing from God was a message from Him spoken by my mother: "The only One who will never leave you is Jesus." This gift had been given to me while I was mourning over the possibility of losing my mother, but I did not yet accept the gift. It wasn't until I had lost the most valued part of my life that I chose to accept God's blessing, which was still there waiting for me. In accepting that one gift, it became the key that unlocked the door to God's overflowing storehouse of blessings. What a comfort it is to know that Jesus is the only foundation on which I can build my life and that He will never fail me.

"For they will be comforted" (Matt. 5:4*). Security, assurance, and hope: these are what God gave me while comforting me in one of my darkest hours. Unlike the comfort I get in the company of friends or in a soft, warm bed on a cold winter's night, the comfort God gives is one that can be accessed anywhere, anytime, and in whatever situation you may be. This comfort can be found in prayer and trusting in Him.

I'm strengthened by Hebrews 13:5: "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." When I read these words, I remember my mom as if she were right here saying it to me again, "The only One who will never leave you is Jesus."

Happier Times
God is good all the time. I am so thankful for His leading in my life. He has given me a beautiful wife, Beth, who is a hospital chaplain. God knew what I needed. Her parents, Pastor Dan and Gloria Bentzinger, have also accepted me as their own. I am currently pursuing a career in the medical field to become a registered nurse and hope eventually to become a nurse anesthetist.

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*All biblical references are taken from the New International Version.

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Adam Gilbert works at Redlands Community Hospital in California while he pursues a career in nursing.