The Prayer
My mother, Ludie Cook, (Pastor Drew Cook’s grandmother) was a wonderful Christian lady who served as the secretary of her church for almost 30 years. She was well known for her integrity and meticulous attention to details and record keeping. The church went through a period of change and she began to wonder if God had another option for a place for her to serve.
A few years earlier I had started a K-12 Christian school for our church in the same building and in fact my office was just a few doors down from hers. About the same time that she was praying for God’s leading, the husband of my typing and shorthand teacher was transferred to another state and suddenly I had to find a teacher with very particular skills. Mrs. Cook was a perfect fit and with the permission of her boss transferred over to teach for me in the school for about 10 years.
A few years earlier I had started a K-12 Christian school for our church in the same building and in fact my office was just a few doors down from hers. About the same time that she was praying for God’s leading, the husband of my typing and shorthand teacher was transferred to another state and suddenly I had to find a teacher with very particular skills. Mrs. Cook was a perfect fit and with the permission of her boss transferred over to teach for me in the school for about 10 years.
An example of that perfect fit was displayed when she came to me with a request for typing desks and equipment for our business lab, to replace the eight foot folding tables and the old typewriters that we had. I sadly had to tell her that funds for an upgrade like that were not available. Her reply was a request that she be allowed to raise the funds herself. Remember that she had been the long term secretary of the church and they all loved her. She knew the serious givers in the church and just who to call for financial help with her project.
In no time at all the gifts for the new business lab were rolling in and the equipment orders were placed. The “paid in full” new lab was a delight to me, to her, to the entire staff, and to her students. For many years it was one of my selling points as I toured the school with prospective parents.
Mrs. Cook was beloved by her students because she pushed them to learn keyboarding and shorthand to levels that would allow them to get good jobs. After a few years, she had a standing offer from one of the largest banks in town to hire any of her girls who had reached their skill requirements, and several of them took those jobs. Everything seemed to be set for her to finish her working years of service to the Lord right there at the school. Everything seemed to be all set—until it wasn’t.
One day four of her best students come by the office and requested a personal meeting with me. This was quite unusual and they soon had my full attention. They told me how they loved Mrs. Cook and the effort she put into their preparation for the future, but something was wrong. They said she had started forgetting things (and she never forgot) and that she was repeating herself (and she never did that). She was repeating the instructions that she had just given to the class a few minutes earlier. She was losing track of where she was in the lesson being presented. This was not at all like the Ludie Cook that I knew. I realized immediately that there was definitely something wrong.
I spoke to Mom and Dad together, and they agreed that something was amiss. He had noticed some small things, himself. We sent her to the University of Michigan Health Center for a physical examination. After extensive testing, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. We replaced her on our staff and then we watched as she began a decade long descent in her mental and physical abilities.
As her mental faculties deteriorated, she lost her ability to verbalize because she could not think of how to put words together in sentences. She lost her ability to read and spent much of her time using a red pencil to underline the lines in a book as if she were reading. When she finished the last page, Dad would get her a new book to underline.
In no time at all the gifts for the new business lab were rolling in and the equipment orders were placed. The “paid in full” new lab was a delight to me, to her, to the entire staff, and to her students. For many years it was one of my selling points as I toured the school with prospective parents.
Mrs. Cook was beloved by her students because she pushed them to learn keyboarding and shorthand to levels that would allow them to get good jobs. After a few years, she had a standing offer from one of the largest banks in town to hire any of her girls who had reached their skill requirements, and several of them took those jobs. Everything seemed to be set for her to finish her working years of service to the Lord right there at the school. Everything seemed to be all set—until it wasn’t.
One day four of her best students come by the office and requested a personal meeting with me. This was quite unusual and they soon had my full attention. They told me how they loved Mrs. Cook and the effort she put into their preparation for the future, but something was wrong. They said she had started forgetting things (and she never forgot) and that she was repeating herself (and she never did that). She was repeating the instructions that she had just given to the class a few minutes earlier. She was losing track of where she was in the lesson being presented. This was not at all like the Ludie Cook that I knew. I realized immediately that there was definitely something wrong.
I spoke to Mom and Dad together, and they agreed that something was amiss. He had noticed some small things, himself. We sent her to the University of Michigan Health Center for a physical examination. After extensive testing, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. We replaced her on our staff and then we watched as she began a decade long descent in her mental and physical abilities.
As her mental faculties deteriorated, she lost her ability to verbalize because she could not think of how to put words together in sentences. She lost her ability to read and spent much of her time using a red pencil to underline the lines in a book as if she were reading. When she finished the last page, Dad would get her a new book to underline.
We watcher her suffer from Alzheimer’s disease for more than ten years, and the continuing progress of the malady was devastating. Her ability to speak had been gone for some time, and she had been forced to depend on facial expressions to communicate. Now even that was gone as was almost any ability for independent movement, leaving her in need of total care. My dad was always the first in line to serve. He spent hours each day patiently coaxing his beloved wife to eat and take in fluids. He always told people, “She would have done this for me if the circumstances were reversed.”
I was describing her desperate condition to my pastor, after the service one Sunday when he solemnly asked me, “Have you prayed the prayer?” I knew exactly what he meant. His compassionate question touched me deeply. Pastors seem to have a way of doing that.
Having gone from a delightful woman of great mental acuity to a non-communicative, almost comatose patient was a dramatic descent. Now she had stopped eating and rarely opened her eyes. She made a pact with Dad when she had first been diagnosed that no extreme measures would be allowed to artificially prolong life as her condition deteriorated. No feeding tubes or breathing assistance would be employed to prevent her earthly exit. Although Dad had arranged for all the necessary legal documents, and was committed to this agreement, he found that keeping it was a gut wrenching experience.
That Sunday, I left speaking with my pastor, and went to the nursing home to join my father at her bedside. Even in an unconscious condition, she was beginning to show grimaces of pain. I asked dad if he was ready to give her up, and pray the prayer. He understood the ramifications of what I was saying. This is a man who had committed his finances, his time, and most importantly of all, his physical health to her care. He had a real concern that he wouldn’t live long enough to see his mission through to the end. Little did he understand how close his arduous work would take him toward his own physical collapse. I really believe that his heroic efforts on her behalf did indeed shorten his life.
He responded to my question by saying that he was ready to pray the prayer. Seeing her suffering and deteriorating condition had finally moved him to let go of that which he had worked so hard to keep. On that Sunday, around noon, we prayed (my father, my wife Konnie, and I) and asked God to take the one we loved so much to heaven, if it was His will. We had no idea how God would respond to that heartfelt request, but we had prayed the prayer with sincerity and all due gravity. We had come boldly to the throne of grace for help in the time of need. We knew that God does all things well, and this situation would be no different.
I was describing her desperate condition to my pastor, after the service one Sunday when he solemnly asked me, “Have you prayed the prayer?” I knew exactly what he meant. His compassionate question touched me deeply. Pastors seem to have a way of doing that.
Having gone from a delightful woman of great mental acuity to a non-communicative, almost comatose patient was a dramatic descent. Now she had stopped eating and rarely opened her eyes. She made a pact with Dad when she had first been diagnosed that no extreme measures would be allowed to artificially prolong life as her condition deteriorated. No feeding tubes or breathing assistance would be employed to prevent her earthly exit. Although Dad had arranged for all the necessary legal documents, and was committed to this agreement, he found that keeping it was a gut wrenching experience.
That Sunday, I left speaking with my pastor, and went to the nursing home to join my father at her bedside. Even in an unconscious condition, she was beginning to show grimaces of pain. I asked dad if he was ready to give her up, and pray the prayer. He understood the ramifications of what I was saying. This is a man who had committed his finances, his time, and most importantly of all, his physical health to her care. He had a real concern that he wouldn’t live long enough to see his mission through to the end. Little did he understand how close his arduous work would take him toward his own physical collapse. I really believe that his heroic efforts on her behalf did indeed shorten his life.
He responded to my question by saying that he was ready to pray the prayer. Seeing her suffering and deteriorating condition had finally moved him to let go of that which he had worked so hard to keep. On that Sunday, around noon, we prayed (my father, my wife Konnie, and I) and asked God to take the one we loved so much to heaven, if it was His will. We had no idea how God would respond to that heartfelt request, but we had prayed the prayer with sincerity and all due gravity. We had come boldly to the throne of grace for help in the time of need. We knew that God does all things well, and this situation would be no different.
On Monday morning I went back to the nursing home to check on her condition and see Dad, before teaching my daily Bible class. I worked at a Christian school within walking distance of the nursing home. After a short visit I crossed the room and put on my coat with the intention of going back over to the school, but could find no freedom in my spirit to exit. It was as if God spoke to my heart and said, “Don’t leave!” It was almost as if there was an invisible hand on my chest. I stopped dead in my tracks, removed my coat, and returned to her bedside, and waited. I called my secretary and asked her to find someone to cover my class.
As the next few minutes passed my memory painted wonderful scenes of our lives together on the canvas of my consciousness until I became alert to the fact that her breathing had slowed. A nurse came by to check her pulse and found it to be very faint. She told us that mom could linger for days or even weeks in this condition. Dad knew there was a problem, he later told me, because her hand was growing colder. I sensed the difficulty of the situation and began mentally noting the widening time between her labored breaths. It was only a few minutes later that my mother stepped out into eternity. She exhaled her last earthly breath and immediately inhaled her first breath of Heaven.
Twenty one hours after we prayed the prayer, God took her home. He gave her dying grace, when the time was right. He gave my dad comforting grace for pain that can only be felt by one committed to a lifetime of loving and caring for another. And yes, real men do cry.
As the next few minutes passed my memory painted wonderful scenes of our lives together on the canvas of my consciousness until I became alert to the fact that her breathing had slowed. A nurse came by to check her pulse and found it to be very faint. She told us that mom could linger for days or even weeks in this condition. Dad knew there was a problem, he later told me, because her hand was growing colder. I sensed the difficulty of the situation and began mentally noting the widening time between her labored breaths. It was only a few minutes later that my mother stepped out into eternity. She exhaled her last earthly breath and immediately inhaled her first breath of Heaven.
Twenty one hours after we prayed the prayer, God took her home. He gave her dying grace, when the time was right. He gave my dad comforting grace for pain that can only be felt by one committed to a lifetime of loving and caring for another. And yes, real men do cry.
I thank the Lord, for answering our prayer and allowing me the privilege of witnessing the last earthly moments of one of the Godliest women I have ever known. The experience makes me want to shout out loud—isn’t God’s grace a wonderful thing?
Roger Allen Cook
I love to write stories about God’s grace. If you have a story I should consider, please contact me at: roger.cook@southside.church.
Roger Allen Cook
I love to write stories about God’s grace. If you have a story I should consider, please contact me at: roger.cook@southside.church.