Prayer service

I'm absolutely exhausted but I am encouraged to continue sharing to help others know a little of what to expect when it's your turn--plus it's just good therapy for me to write. Well, this is the way my mother looked in her pretty coffin. The necklace and earrings were given to her by my dad on their wedding day. It was hard for me to put them on her and think that they would be gone forever. My sister-in-law, Sharel, asked the mortician to take them off of her and give them to me afterwards. He said that they would be able to do that so then I wanted her to wear them as they were very special to her.

The mortician (Mr. Carlsen) said that she was so full of air because they kept trying to resuscitate her. The doctor was her friend, and did not want to give up on her, so he kept trying and trying but it was no use. Mr. Carlsen told us on Sunday that much of the swelling would go down but she still looked puffy in the face and neck here on Tuesday afternoon. She also had a bad bruise on her hand where they tried to get an IV started. She was shutting down, though, so nothing had worked. The bruise was on the hand away from the public so you had to really look to see it for which I was thankful. Here is my mother--Erdmuth (Kusler) Delzer. She used to say that her parents never gave her a middle name becuase they gave her such an ugly first name and that was enough. She liked "Erdie" much better and nobody even knew that her real name was Erdmuth. Her parents were both born in Russia and immigrated here as a young married couple.


Today went better than I thought it would so I praise God for all of your prayers. Still, these are the facts. My oldest brother has not responded to anyone since Saturday night so we don't know if he'll be at the funeral or not. He wasn't there today. My dad is NOT coping. My second oldest brother took him to the doctor for something to "Calm" him down this morning as he is a wreck. How I wish that I could have been given an opportunity to do a session (or 300) on him, but I wasn't. My youngest brother ruined his brain cells on drugs decades ago. I should have known better than to leave something real important to him as it bit me again today. He didn't tell my dad's sister from Bismarck about the prayer service. She came with a cousin of my dads who found out about it somehow. She kept saying over and over, "I didn't know about this," and glaring at ME!!! Thanks a lot Rick!!!


I'll write more later about how wonderful the pastor was and the friends the Lord sent to comfort me, but for now I'll just add this video. Our family sang one of our favorite hymns AND CAN IT BE. It went well and then I sang FIND US FAITHFUL. Cora videoed it with her camera so I'm not sure what the quality will be like. I know that it was far from my best singing but then, I've never sung for my mother's prayer service before. I wanted to do it, because I knew that she would have wanted me to sing, plus I had ulterior motives.

I spoke for a little while how I learned in '06 on my deathbed, that it was killing me to cling to all of these petty little grudges. I spoke of the joy that has come to me from learning to forgive others. Then I said that I want to leave to my children an example of faithfulness to God as He has blessed me soooooooooooo much. It was very hard but it was also very good. THEN I sang. Praise the Lord for the strength He gives us when He asks us to do something very difficult. Robert would call it "Stretching."

I can hardly wait to write more about seeing my Uncle David right before we came home. I haven't seen him in years, but it was as though we'd never parted to be in his big, strong bear hug tonight. :) His love carried me through my difficult teenage years as mentioned in my post called FULL OF BEAUTY. Some people just light up the world with their smiles. :) This is the only picture that I have of Uncle David and I together and it's taken in mom's kitchen. My brother, Rick, is in the white sweater. It sure was cold for April.


Well, here's the video. Thanks for all of your prayers and please continue praying us through tomorrow too. I'm praying for a rich harvest of souls for the kingdom to come out of mom's funeral--so is the pastor. :)

This is the last picture that I'll ever have taken with my mom. I'll say again that I hope that nobody is getting grossed out by this but it IS THE LAST PICTURE THAT I'LL EVER HAVE TAKEN WITH MY MOM! Death is real and it is permanent. In my case, my mother was sick 3 hours before her death. PLEASE people, if you love somebody, tell them every time that you think it because there will come a last time (if they go first). Aren't her flowers from our family just lovely?

Here I was trying to comfort dad minutes after he saw

mom's body for the first time. He hadn't seen her since

Saturday night when she collapsed right before her death.

I'll never forget how he sobbed, "Erdie, why did you leave

me?" as he wept over her body. How can you comfort

somebody who loved a girl for 70 years? They met when

he was 9 years old and he's 79 now. He said that he

always thought that she was such a pretty girl!

What more can I say but the words of Job, "The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed by the name of the Lord." He doeth all things well!!! We just don't always understand what He is up to.

I love you all,

Dawn

PS. Andrew said that it would take too long for him to get the video on tonight as he's just beat. He cleaned grain before and after the prayer service so I'll post it later on in the week.