Driving home from the emergency room tonight at 12:30, my heart and mind was brimming with a conflicting arrangement of emotions and thoughts. Three hours earlier I received a call from Aunt Mary, who, in the absence of Dave and Jen who are camping, authorized the assisted living home to take Mom to the hospital. Mom had a fall a few days ago and the pain resulting from the fall had intensified.
When I arrived at the hospital, Ron and Mary were at her side. I grabbed Mom by the hand as I inspected her injuries. She had a few cuts on her face and a bandaged elbow. I was later shown an x-ray and the bruising on her side. She had broken her pelvis but only with a hairline fracture. Still she was hurting. Typically when she speaks, it’s usually in response to some stimulus – someone asking her a question, something she hears, etc. But tonight, she would twist gingerly in her bed, wince with pain and mutter, “It hurts. It hurts.” without prompting.
Later that evening when she was lifted from the hospital bed to the stretcher for transportation back to Bel Aire Assisted Living, she sat up in fear reaching out for me, calling after me with a pleading of “Where are they taking me?” I stayed by her side in the ambulance to try to calm her fears.
Before they left the emergency room earlier this evening, Ron and I were able to administer a blessing to Mom. I remember two parts of this blessing. One was that despite the ailments of her mind and body, she would know of her family’s love. The second was that she would be made comfortable.
After tucking her into bed at Bel Aire, I began my drive home and opened a prayer in which I asked Heavenly Father again why Mom has to experience such pain, fear and captivity. I was reminded of the blessing I administered in Jesus’ name earlier. Through the merits of the atonement, all negative baggage from this life can be lifted. All of this pain, fear and captivity that Mom is experiencing is a result of the fall and Father’s children need a way to overcome those effects. I noticed a billboard for a company specializing in pain treatment and realized that the only effective treatment is the atonement of Jesus Christ.
The answer to this prayer is not likely something I’ll get completely in this life. But Heavenly Father was merciful to me tonight in allowing me to not only receive but to administer in a potion of the answer to that prayer. Through the Priesthood and power offered through faith in Jesus Christ, pain, fear and captivity can be removed. So, some of the purpose of these things is to lead us to Christ.
I plan to drop by to visit her again after work tomorrow (technically today) and I hope to see evidence of Heavenly Father’s work in progress - reducing the effect of both types of falls.
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