In the summer of 1978, I took my quarter horse to lead trail rides for kids at a Bible camp in rural Iowa. I had just found out my sister, Melody, had been diagnosed with the fastest-acting, worst-type of leukemia. My mom wrote me letters every day that I was away (nobody called long distance unless it was a true emergency in those days). I kept those letters and compiled them into the journey that was our lives that summer.
Melody Heuss prayed that God would bring her closer to Him during a time when she felt she had drifted away from Him in her daily walk.
I don't know what it would be like to choose my young husband's new wife. I don't know what it would be like to handpick a mother for my two small children; but my sister did. When she knew she was going to die, she convinced Carl, her husband and love of her life, to re-marry. Melody made a list of eligible women and then narrowed it down to one that Carl had never even met! All the while she was having numerous bone marrow aspirations, blood transfusions, and chemotherapy that would turn her 28-year-old body into a bald, disease-ravaged weakling. Her inner strength, courage, and attitude brought inspiration to every single person who walked into her hospital room and life. Nurses, family and friends were changed forever by the way she handled her passing into the next life.
This is a story told from Melody's mother, Ruth's, point of view, the writer of the letters. The frustrations and difficulties of watching her child suffer tugs on your heart. You will also get a glimpse of what I went through being away from home, and being torn between wanting to be in the hospital room, but knowing I was where God wanted me to be. Plus, you get to witness Susan, the young woman who had already endured many loses and heartbreaks of her own, step into this family on faith.
Ruth personally witnessed the power and assurance of God's eternal love for us, even in her grief. On the early August morning of Melody's passing, Ruth received a "gift" most of us never get to see. It was a message from God, declaring the promise of life after death in a physical, tangible way. It was a real miracle that all Christians can believe in and cherish.
Crystal Jolly
