Some years ago, I wanted to explore the broken relationship between my grandmother and my mother. I understood in part, but not the whole. I think people sometimes become more stubborn about their wants as they grow older, and my grandmother had definite expectations in where, with whom and how she would spend her latter years. It was painful watching the two women I loved most dearly estranged. This was the beginning of Her Mother’s Hope which centered on Marta and Hildemara, two characters who represented my grandmother and mother’s life and personalities.
When my mother was dying of cancer and wanted to purge possessions, she asked me what I wanted. I asked for her diaries. She started writing journals at the age of 17. The first covered five years and included her graduation from high school, entrance into nursing school, first job in a Bay Area hospital, and first dates with her future husband, my father. She contracted tuberculosis while working in the hospital. She was sent away to a sanatorium in Livermore, California, where she spent months undergoing treatment. She said little about that time other than the young man she loved came often to visit (my dad), and mentioned her roommate and friend who also had a young man visiting. When I researched the sanatorium, I learned it no longer existed. I wanted to know what it was like to live for months in a sanatorium and could find little detailed information.
When I opened my website email one day, I found a letter from a woman who said she was in her mid-eighties, learning how to use a computer and wanted to connect with me because she had been a friend of my mother. She reminded me that I had met her as a child when my mom came for a visit. And guess what else I learned? She was my mother’s roommate at the sanatorium! We began corresponding. She sent me the memoir she had written for her family which included a chapter about the sanatorium, her friendship with Mom, and their two beaus who became their husbands. All the details I’d longed to know about my mother during that time were given to me as a gift, and the timing could not be coincidence, but rather God revealing Himself. He knows the desires of our hearts. That sweet lady passed on shortly after the release of Her Mother’s Hope.
That experience was another of those epiphany moments when I felt God’s Presence in a powerful way. He is the God who protects, confirms our faith, guide us, rescues us, and even provides details that help us see our loved ones in new light.