Theresa Matlock Mojica
September 9, 1974 - June 4, 2005
For those of you who do not know, Theresa passed away on June 4, 2005. I think
we were all surprised to see her go after all she had been through
over the last year. Sometimes God works in mysterious ways and we don't
understand why things happen the way they do, but we can be sure He
knows what's best and there was a reason for the way things transpired.
At the funeral I said I would write a follow-up story to the first
one I had written about the miracles that had taken place in Theresa's
life. This is that story.
Picking up where we left off, Theresa had just come back from her
battle with her last round of chemotherapy and was in full remission.
Her blood counts were back up to normal and she was doing very good.
If they hadn't had her on all the anti-fungal drugs to keep her from
getting the Mucomycossis again I believe she would have been completely
back to normal. Her next battle was not against any disease but rather
against the lunacy of Medicaid and a heartless doctor who refused to
believe someone could be healed from a deadly disease such as
Mucomycossis. Almost every day they ran some form of test looking for
a fungal infection that they never found to be there. If it had not
been for several of our friends taking up arms against these people
and going to bat for Theresa she would never have gotten her transplant.
In all it took three months to talk them into giving her the stem
cell transplant she needed. Time that may have cost her her life. There
is no way of knowing that but one has to wonder. An interview
from one of the local TV stations was set up by one of the ladies in
our church, and the governor's office was notified of her situation.
The day after the TV interview aired she was told she would receive
her transplant.
If I were to write what I thought of the hospital to this point I would
need more space than I was given to write this story. So, to save you
time and me some space all I'm going to say is we were not happy at all
in the way she was being treated. However, once she was told she would
receive her transplant and was taken up to the 7th floor, she was given
the best care she could have received. The difference in the way the
two hospital floors were run, the way the nurses and staff treated her
was so remarkable, sometimes I felt I was in the wrong hospital. To have
a doctor who showed he really cared about his patient and would talk
to us and answer questions for us was wonderful. To have nurses who
would come take care of things when they needed to be taken care of
was wonderful. To have a support staff who did their jobs and did it
without complaining about it was wonderful. There is not enough I can
say about how much the people on the 7th floor of the UAMS hospital meant to
not only Theresa, but to her family as well. Thank you from the bottom
of all our hearts. One thing I want you to know is when Theresa chose to
leave you and go back to Hot Springs, it was not because she didn't
like you, she loved you all. It was because she wanted to be closer
to her family and friends. I was very aware of the impression she had
left on many of you and I assure you, your love and care left an
impression on Theresa as well as her family.
On June 1, 2005, the doctor told us the leukemia was back and they had
done all they could do for her. He told her she had two choices. She
could go home and let hospice take care of her and she would live three
or four days or she could stay there in the hospital and have three to
four weeks to live. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Can I go
back to St. Joseph's hospital in Hot Springs so I can be closer to my
family and friends and I'll have more time with them." So that's what
she did. On Thursday, June 2, 2005, she was taken to the hospital In
Hot Springs. When I arrived at the hospital to bring her clothing and
things to her she had just checked in and her room was almost full of
people who were there to see her and welcome her back. It had been a
desire of Theresa's to come back to see the nurses there at St. Joseph's
and let them know that when she left she was afraid they might have
thought she was mad at them and didn't want to be there, but such was
not the case at all. She thought the world of them. She left in hopes
of the doctors up at UAMS being able to somehow save her life from the
mucomycossis she was dying from. If she had known it was all gone she
wouldn't have left until it was time for the transplant. To those at
St. Joseph's in Hot Springs, she truly loved you and was happy she was
able to spend her last days with you.
On Friday, June 3, I got to her room about mid-morning. I had planned to
stay that night before with her but she was so tired from her trip back
to St. Joseph's and so drugged up I went home a little after midnight
and got a little sleep myself. When I arrived Friday morning she was up
in bed and visiting with the nurses. When we got a moment to ourselves
she wanted to know when her girls were coming up to see her and I let
her know her mom was bringing them after lunch. Most of the day Friday
was spent just visiting with different people who stopped in to see her.
I had planned to spend the night with her again Friday night but they gave
her a big dose of something they said would let her sleep all night so
she told me to go home and I did. Her mother and I drove up early
Saturday morning to be with her.
Theresa had asked if we could have another anointing for her, this time
for the leukemia. I contacted the pastor and we set it up for that
afternoon at 3:30. The church members came and held a prayer session in
the chapel while a few came up to her room for the anointing. I could tell Theresa
was feeling tired. She had been falling into these spells where she would
start talking and saying something and she would just repeat herself
over and over and stare off into space or at something and then she
would catch herself and it would annoy her that she was doing it. She,
for some reason, started saying "yes" as she would exhale on almost
every breath. It really annoyed her and she was afraid it was annoying
us but we told her it was OK. She just kept doing it and couldn't stop
no matter how hard she tried.
When the pastor and everyone came into the room and started their prayer
circle, Theresa did something that took us all by surprise. She prayed
a short prayer for herself. What I found most unusual about her prayer
was that it wasn't a prayer of asking God to save her but rather a
prayer of testimony. Her prayer wasn't all about me, me, me. She just
said she believed. She believed God would answer our prayers. To me it
was the most unselfish act I had ever witnessed. Her thoughts and
prayers right up to the end were of others and not for herself. Pastor
Larson finished the prayer session by asking that she be healed from
her disease but if that wasn't His plan then to please don't make her
hang on and suffer.
Once the prayer session was over the people told her goodbye and all
went out of the room to visit. I returned to my chair in the corner
by her bed and sat down. As I sat there my father, Theresa's grandfather,
came over to tell her goodbye and she told him she didn't want to die
and it was very hard for us to take. I think it was at that time she finally
gave up. Dad had to leave the room because it was really hard on him,
as you can imagine. As I sat there alone with Theresa she closed her
eyes and tried to rest. As she would breathe she was still saying,
"yes, yes, yes" as she would exhale. While she was doing this I was
sitting there wondering what more we could do for her when out of the
blue she opened her eyes and stared straight at the wall in front of
her and started to sing, saying, "The bible tells me so. Yes Jesus loves
me..." This was so amazing to me I just sat there and listened to her.
After she said the few words to this song she stopped singing and went
back to talking on her exhales, but after saying "yes" all day she
changed her words to, "Yes, I Am. Yes, I Am." Over and over she said
this starring at the foot of the bed like she was looking at someone.
"Yes, I Am. Yes, I Am, Yes, I Am." After a couple of minutes of this
she closed her eyes and went to sleep. Sitting there those words kept
going through my mind until it dawned on me that in the bible God told
Moses, in the book of Exodus, to tell the children of Israel to call
Him "I Am." Was God calling Theresa home? Was I given a chance to see
this so I would know that her salvation was secure? I believe so. In
fact, I know so. It's not very often one can say for a fact you know
someone is going to be in heaven. We have no way to see into the hearts
of others and it is not our place to pass judgment upon others and I guess
it may be presumptuous to believe that I know she will be there but the
bible tells us "by their fruits ye shall know them," and being the
person who spent more time with Theresa over the last year than anyone
I can tell you by her fruits, by the way she treated others, by her witness
to others, by the love she showed to have for Christ, I have no doubt
she will be there. After a little bit Tracy, my younger daughter, came
and sat with Theresa while Wanda and I stepped out to grab a bite to eat.
When we returned, I could tell Theresa's breathing had become slower and
more labored. One of the nurses there at St. Joseph's (someone Theresa
had thought the world of) came on duty at 7 and when she saw her name
on the board she came straight to the room to see her. When she came
in she saw there were several people in the room and she started to
excuse herself to let us be alone but I saw Theresa had noticed her come
in and she was trying really hard to sit up and say something to her.
I stuck up my hand and waved at her to get her attention and told her
Theresa was trying to say something to her. As the nurse walked up
to Theresa and greeted her, Theresa got a sudden burst of energy and she
talked to her for a couple of minutes but then had to tell her she was
tired now and needed to catch her breath. It wasn't much longer after
that that she closed her eyes for the last time and went to sleep
for now.
A sad ending to a life so filled with promise. But as I said when I
began, we can't see the future as God can and if she had lived, she
may have changed and been lost forever or she may have had to endure
something we can't even imagine. The witness she was to the people
who cared for her may have been her sole purpose in life. We don't know.
What we can know though, is God knows what's best and if he saw it
best for her days to end now then we can rejoice in knowing she is
in God's care now and any mourning we do is basically for ourselves
and our loss and not for her. In the book of John in your bibles you
can read in chapter 11, verses 11-14, where Jesus is talking to His
disciples and He tells them, "Lazarus is sleeping." They thought He meant
that Lazarus was really asleep but by saying he was asleep He meant he
was dead and He was going to go and raise him from the dead. We read
in Job, chapter 14, verses 11-15, where Job is talking to Jesus and telling
Him that when he lies down to sleep (when he dies) he will not rise again,
nor be raised out of his sleep until Jesus comes again and calls us
home. As a Seventh-day Adventist this is what Theresa believed and it
is how her family believes. She is asleep right now in God's care as
we will all be some day (unless He should come in our lifetime) but we
can all have a chance to see her again. All we have to do is love Christ
and show Him we do by living our lives the way He showed us to. Not
because we have to but because we want to. Because we love Him. Some day
Jesus will come again to take His people home and when He does we will
have that chance to be together again with not just Theresa but all of
our loved ones.
Theresa touched a lot of lives over the last year. I know she touched
mine. Chances are she touched yours in some way, too. I know by the
way people would come to her room to say "hi" to her when they would
come on duty they cared for her and she had touched their lives. I
know by the way my phone would ring off the wall with people calling to
check on her that she had touched their lives. I know by the countless
number of cards she received, even from people who had only read about
her story, she had touched many lives. She may not live with us
physically anymore, but she still lives on in our hearts and in our
memories.
Theresa's uncle Danny sang a song at the funeral called
"Thank You." I asked for him to sing it because I felt if ever a song fit
a person it fit Theresa to a tee! For those of you who don't know the
song it is a song about a person who, when they got to Heaven, kept
being thanked for things they did when they were here on Earth. The
third verse says, "One by one they came, far as the eye could see. Each
one somehow touched by your generosity. Little things that you had done,
sacrifices made. Unnoticed on the Earth, in Heaven now proclaimed."
I can see this in my minds eye happening to her. I just hope you are
all there with me to stand in that line and tell her "thank you" for
whatever it was she did to touch your life as I know she will be in
several of your lines to thank you if you are there.
For more information on what Seventh-day Adventists believe about death
and the resurrection click here
or here.
To contact the author click here.
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