If It Wasn't for Jesus

By Travis Kircher

Mom has been gone for more than two months now.

Alma June Kircher—my mother—passed away just before 1:45 a.m. on Thursday, July 13, at the Symphony at Oaklawn assisted living facility. She was 78. Her death marked the end of four years of struggling with the confusion, anxiety, and memory loss that the wretched sickness called vascular dementia wreaks on its victims.

It also meant the end of the long separation between my mother and the people she loved the most—including my father, and especially her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—as she stepped out of this world and into the world beyond.

GROWING UP KIRCHER

Mom and Dad were married in 1958, both strong Christians. My mother had received a Godly upbringing. My father, John Walter Kircher, did not. I’d hear stories of how, as children, my dad and uncle would hide under the bed when my grandfather would come home in a drunken stupor and physically abuse my grandmother. Throughout his life, I would never see Dad touch a drop of alcohol.

My two older brothers, Don and Steve, were born in 1959 and 1961. I was born much later, when Mom was nearing 40. At 14 and 16 years older than me, my brothers belonged to a different generation. It made for an interesting family dynamic. During my childhood, my brothers both had cars, so I guess you could say I was the kid who got around.

In 1976, the year I was born, Dad started his own business. He began building electrical control panels in our basement, which everyone thought was pretty cool—except for Mom. One day, Dad was drilling in the basement, and Mom, sick of all the noise, jokingly yelled from the top of the stairs that if he didn’t stop, she’d leave him. Dad yelled back that whatever it was she wanted, she’d have to tell him later because he couldn’t hear her over the drilling.

During those years, Mom and Dad would travel. As strong Christians immersed in the Bible, they loved Israel and visited six times. They also made it to Alaska, Egypt, China, Hawaii, and other exotic places. They were active in their church, where Dad started a media ministry and Mom served in the nursery.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE

The beginning of the end for Dad came when I was in high school, when he was diagnosed with Polycythemia vera, a genetic blood cancer. In 1994, during my senior year, Dad went to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for drastic surgery to have his spleen removed—but the doctors halted their plans, choosing instead to give Dad an experimental new treatment.

Months later, I remember him standing up one Sunday night at our old church, telling the congregation how the doctors said the treatments would give him five more years of life, and he planned to do the best he could to use them for the Lord. In the years that followed, he poured himself into the Men’s Ministry, reaching guys for Christ. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in Man Challenge, or the Blankenbaker Campus’ Saturday Morning Men’s Bible Study, and wished Dad could have been there with me. He would have loved it.

In the end, Dad was wrong. The Lord didn’t give him five more years; He gave him seven.

Dad finally passed away in the early morning hours of August 29, 2001, just two weeks before 9/11. My mom and brothers were by his bedside as he took his final breaths. I wasn’t. I was peeking into the hospital room from the hallway outside, like a frightened child. I didn’t want to see it. More importantly, I didn’t want to remember.

I was 25. I lost my dad far too early.

COPING WITH LOSS

While it was hard for my brothers and me to lose our father, it was much harder for Mom to lose the love of her life.

I’ve never been married, so I can’t claim to have any knowledge of what that loss is like. But I can tell you what Mom told me: weeks later, when she saw the coverage of 9/11—the live, unedited coverage—she felt nothing. She was numb. She was still in shock from losing her husband.

In the years that followed, she never got used to being a widow. There were good times, of course. Mom looked forward to family get-togethers like Christmas and Thanksgiving, and she was still involved at church, but she never quite learned how to have a life outside of Dad’s shadow. She never had a career—raising three boys was her career. So I would call her daily and visit her 3-4 evenings a week. My brothers would often take her out for lunch. That helped. But she still missed Dad.

“If it wasn’t for Jesus...” she would simply say.

THE LONG GOODBYE

We first started noticing signs of dementia several years later, in 2013, when Mom briefly got lost while driving to meet us at a familiar restaurant. Later, when I discovered that she almost got her pills mixed up, we realized that it was time for me to take over her medications. She reluctantly agreed.

I learned a lot about Mom from that.

I learned that she struggled with anxiety—a struggle that began before I was even born. She took blood pressure pills, heartburn medications, thyroid pills, anxiety pills, and blood thinners.

Over time, her dementia progressed. She began experiencing hallucinations. Mom would call me and my brothers at work, telling us that she had just spoken with our grandfather, a man who had passed away decades earlier, and she was worried because now she couldn’t find him.

One night, I picked up hamburgers for the two of us on the way home from work. When I got to her house, she had five places set, and she apologized profusely to the phantoms in the empty chairs because her son hadn’t brought enough food for them.

Her doctors told us it was time to look into assisted living, but we ignored them. Mom had been in the same house for 50 years, and my brother had promised her long ago that we would let her live out her days at home. No nursing home! We understood how she felt, so we tried everything. I would race to her house in the evening after work. On nights when one of us couldn’t be there, we called in-home caregivers.

But in October 2015, when her sisters drove up from Texas for a visit, they laid down the law. They could see what we refused to see: It was time to listen to Mom’s doctors. She needed 24/7, round-the-clock care. Two months later, Mom was in assisted living.

You would think her time there would be miserable, but it wasn’t. It definitely wasn’t always cheery, but there were games, and she was surrounded by people her age. Some days I’d visit and she would cheerfully announce that she had “been to school” and was “going to get married.” On one occasion, around Christmas, they loaded Mom and other residents into a van and drove them to see the Christmas lights. She had a great time—but an hour later, she couldn’t remember it.

As time wore on, the dementia brought about a curious role-reversal. Mom was reverting back to being like a child, and we were the parents now. Just a couple of months ago, I brought her food from Olive Garden, her favorite. I had to feed her myself. She had forgotten how to hold a spoon.

In the end, her body simply shut down. When she passed away in July, my brothers and I were in her room. This time I wasn’t hiding outside the door. As she took her last breaths, I was holding her hand, looking into her eyes.

“IF IT WASN’T FOR JESUS...”

In 1 Corinthians 15:17-19 (ESV), the Apostle Paul writes: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

I don’t care what anyone tells you: death is an enemy. It’s not a warm friend waiting to embrace you. It’s not a part of God’s plan. It never was. It’s horrid. It’s a foe that needs to be vanquished. And that’s exactly what Christ did.

“But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.” (1 Corinthians 15:20-21 ESV)

It is because of this resurrection that we know Mom and Dad are finally with Christ. It is because of this resurrection that we know they will one day walk in a new Heaven and a New Earth in glorified physical bodies. It is because of this resurrection that we know that the “great crowd of witnesses” in Heaven, spoken of in Hebrews 11 and 12, now has two more members cheering us on.

And so we persevere in faith, leaning on Christ who gives us courage to look death in the eye, because we know how the story ends. We look to “...Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

LETTER TO THE BOYS

My brothers and I found this note buried in Mom’s drawers in an envelope addressed to us. It isn’t dated, but I assume she wrote it years ago when her mind was clear, and she hid it where she knew we would find it after she was gone. This was her prayer for us. I don’t think she would object to sharing it, and I believe it would be her prayer for you too.

Dear Don, Steve, and Trav,

You will never know how much I love you. Sometimes when I think I don’t have anybody, I think of you guys and love sweeps over me and sustains me. But it is love for Jesus Christ and His love for me that keeps me going.

My greatest dream and prayer is that you will come to know the face of Jesus and His ways and His loving kindness that is so freely offered. I know you all are good Christians, but there is a closeness that you can have if you will search for it.

I have found out that there is nothing more important in this life than doing your very best to serve the Lord and be ready for His coming.

Love, Mom