Don't Cry Mommy...: A Search For Profundity: God

By Linda Ketchum Hulsey

This book is an event that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt for me that God is indeed alive and well and living within each of us. Every day, we are given a choice, before our feet hit the floor in the morning, to plug into our awareness of God's Spirit and goodness. I think we all have days when we lose sight of that gift of Spirit by the pressing elements that life throws at us. When you enter or are pulled into His realm of love and grace, the impossible happens--unconditional love. In the worst circumstances of my life, being the loss of my husband and Carlye's father, Kim, followed by our daughter's illness and death, God sent in people from every walk of life to assist us. Those walks included family, friends, loved ones, and people we did not know. That group consisted of every religion you could think of, every skin color, atheists, gays, and lesbians, just to name a few. Their compassion and love became so infectious like the cancer we were battling.

In the end, that infection spread so rapidly it overcame Carlye's disease with faith, hope, and love. For me, it would have been impossible to survive life without those three gifts from God. In what Kim, Carlye, and I sometimes considered our "hell on earth," we got a marvelous glimpse of what heaven on earth is like when all people set aside their differences, put down their stones, and come together to offer unconditional love and assistance in any way they can. Not once did anyone ever say, "Before I offer my assistance, I need to know what religion you are or what political party you support." There were a few times when we were clueless about who those people were, but we always knew by their acts of love, they were sent by God. I will always be forever thankful.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7-10).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888321423

Book preview

cover.jpg

Don't Cry Mommy...

A Search For Profundity: God

Linda Ketchum Hulsey

ISBN 979-8-88832-141-6 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89130-463-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-88832-142-3 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Linda Ketchum Hulsey

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Cover: Designed by Bil Sillesky

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Carlye Coming into the World

Chapter 2

Charmed Childhood and High School

Chapter 3

Off to College; Losing Her Dad

Chapter 4

Redefining Vacation in Florida; Crunch Time

Chapter 5

Returning Home

Chapter 6

Fast Eddie to the Rescue

Chapter 7

A Search for Something More

Chapter 8

A Few Words about Religion

Conclusion

About the Author

Introduction

A word about the cover

The watch on the cover was a gift to me from my daughter, Carlye, in celebration of my sixtieth birthday. The two of us were born in October. Carlye came into the world on October 20, 1976, and I was born on October 25, 1950. My sixtieth happened to fall at the age of thirty-three for her, and in her third year of a recovery plan from stage 4 tongue cancer, among many other health issues that took a front seat right beside the cancer. It represents so much. You can buy a watch to keep time, or, in this case, you can give a watch as a gift in memory of the time you shared together, the time you are sharing now or in hope of the time you will have together in the future. This watch represents all three. Time is defined as the continued progress of the existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole. Time has no rewind or fast-forward buttons. Time as we know is a priceless gift. The perpetual ticking of time is simultaneous and unalterable for everyone.

She had the watch inscribed on the back with the date of my sixtieth birthday, and around the bottom, she had inscribed Don't Cry Mommy… When Carlye was only four years old, she and her dad, Kim, went Christmas shopping for me. After the two of them picked out a gift, they got it wrapped and brought it home. Carlye found a special spot under the tree for her first present to me. The next morning, Kim left for work, and I was at home with her. She was so excited about getting a gift for me. She said there was a surprise for me under the tree. The child in me came out to play with her. My curiosity was piqued (not peeked), and so I decided to just ask her in a childlike voice what it was. This would have played out better for me had I just taken the peeked road, but this was to be the first of many life lessons she would teach me. She grinned and said Daddy had told her not to tell anyone, especially me. It was a surprise. I assured her I could keep a secret, but she told me again, No, Daddy said not to tell. It is a surprise.

I kept asking, and she kept holding out. I finally put my hands over my eyes and said, If you don't tell me, I am going to cry. What a terrible mother I had become at that moment.

She came running over to me and threw her little arms around my neck, and in desperation said, Don't cry, Mommy, it's a watch.

I was so ashamed of my behavior. I tried to downplay the whole incident and hoped she would forget, but as soon as her dad arrived home, she went running over to him and told him that I was going to cry so she told me about the watch. He was not too happy with me for a few days, and for a long time after that, my presents were never put under the tree until Christmas morning. I like to believe, as I was only twenty-nine years old at the time, I was baby stepping as a new mother and had so much to learn through that beautiful daughter. Now, over thirty years later, that precious child who had become a beautiful woman had picked out another watch and had it engraved with Don't Cry Mommy… (she knew I could complete the sentence with what she had said over thirty years ago) It's a watch.

She had the month, day, and year of my birthday inscribed across the center. What a priceless treasure that would be for the rest of my life. She knew how sick she was and wanted to make that birthday special. I will wear that watch for the rest of my life, and it will remind me, daily, how precious the gift of time is, and what a wonderful gift of time we all had with our Carlye.

This book is a story about that irreplaceable gift of time and my journey as a child of God, wife, widow, mother, friend, doubting Thomas, and grieving parent, and how I have come to and continue to come to terms with being left behind, surviving, redefining my faith, resurrecting hope, and getting on with the time I have left. I consider myself a woman of faith. For me, my faith has been taken and tested beyond its limits with the loss of my husband of thirty-three years, followed eight years later by the loss of our only child, Carlye Nicole Ketchum. It is not my intention to diminish the loss of a spouse in any way, as that is quite a traumatic event. Without my husband, Kim, there would never have been our Carlye. And for that, among many other gifts he gave me, I will always be thankful.

Here I feel the need to focus on the loss of our child because that pain intensified loss for me so dramatically that I feel, for the rest of my life, there will always be two parts: my life with Carlye and my life without her. I feel my spirit is the driving force here for something I believe to be so important that if it helps only one person in their life's journey, it will be worth it. Worst-case scenario, it has helped my heart and soul to heal. As with any devastatingly deep wound, there will always be scar tissue.

On one of Carlye's weekend visits home, during her freshman year while attending the University of Tennessee, I accidentally caught a glimpse of a tattoo on the small of her back while she was sleeping. Her dad and I had been opposed to tattoos because we had heard that process was very painful. We felt there would be enough painful processes thrown at us; therefore, we had no interest in that choice. I was taken aback but realizing she was an adult now, we felt that should be her decision. However, I did have to play the mom card, and when the opportunity presented itself, I asked her to please tell me the tattoo she had on her back was one of those that would fade away or wash off. She smiled and said no, that she and some friends had been partying one night and decided to get one. She had painted a picture of it, and it hung on the wall in her bedroom. I couldn't recall any conversation with her about what it was or what it meant.

After her death, I went on a search to find the answer. As she had journaled a lot, the answer came in discovering a sketch of the tattoo with the meaning and definition:

profundity denotes collective effort and all or the whole, also the immense depth of water. People who seek profundity of deep water do not skim the surface in their perceptions but strive for an understanding of the whole universe in its essential unity. Profound. I had never heard that word before and decided to include that as part of the definition of my journey in this book. We all search for truth at one time or another. God has become my definition of profundity and truth.

This is also an event that proves beyond any shadow of a doubt for me that God is indeed alive and well and living within each of us. Every day, we are given a choice, before our feet hit the floor in the morning, to plug into our awareness of God's Spirit and goodness. I think we all have days when we lose sight of that gift of spirit by the pressing elements that life throws at us. When you enter or are pulled into His realm of love and grace, the impossible happens—unconditional love. In the worst circumstances of my life, being the loss of my husband and Carlye's father, Kim, followed by our daughter's illness and death, God sent in people from every walk of life to assist us. Those walks included family, friends, loved ones, and people we did not know. That group consisted of every religion you could think of, every skin color, atheists, gays, and lesbians, just to name a few. Their compassion and love became so infectious like the cancer we were battling.

In the end, that infection spread so rapidly it overcame Carlye's disease with faith, hope, and love. For me, it would have been impossible to survive life without those three gifts from God. In what Kim, Carlye, and I sometimes considered our hell on earth, we got a marvelous glimpse of what heaven on earth is like when all people set aside their differences, put down their stones, and come together to offer unconditional love and assistance in any way they can. Not once did anyone ever say, Before I offer my assistance, I need to know what religion you are or what political party you support. There were a few times when we were clueless about who those people were, but we always knew by their acts of love, they were sent by God. I will always be forever thankful.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God" (1 John 4:7–10).

Carlye Nicole Ketchum in 2002.

Chapter 1

Carlye Coming into the World

A dear friend of mine told me we all come into this world with expiration dates; however, most of us are clueless as to when our time will expire. Others get more of a road map for part of the direction their lives will take, but detours can and do appear abruptly without warning a lot of the time. Some good, some bad, some marvelous, and some excruciating.

Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, For death is the destiny of every man.

My labor for my firstborn child started on a damp, cool, rainy night in Georgia, on a Wednesday, October 19, 1976. Carlye's dad, Kim, and I had just gotten home from another amateur ice hockey game that he had played in, and we were both feeling exhausted. He collapsed on the bed, and I tried to settle down on the sofa for a while. Just as I was getting comfortable, what I believed to be contractions began to shoot through me like little bolts of lightning. I timed them, and as the time started getting shorter, and the pain intensified, I called my doctor and was told to head to the hospital. I woke Kim up, and his first question was, Do I have time to take a shower? He was a soon-to-be first-time dad, so I cut him slack, but no time for a shower. Spit bath was an option on the way to the car if he hurried. I was a soon-to-be first-time mom, fearful of the excruciating pain I was in. I needed relief yesterday. We made it to the hospital emergency room around 11:00 p.m., where Carlye's arrival into the world was yet another and an even bigger storm brewing.

I was in labor almost twenty-four hours before Carlye arrived at 10:19, the following night on October 20. It was hard labor, and I had opted for an epidural that helped the pain periodically; however, it was quite a difficult time for me. I am a small person, never completely dilated, and she was a big baby: eight pounds, six and a half ounces. They started losing her heart tones. They were afraid the cord was wrapped around her neck, so they had to do an emergency C-section. Kim was escorted out into a waiting area from the delivery room, and I was rolled to an operating room. I was told I had a girl, and I got to hear her cry as they began administering drugs to help me rest for a while. I started going into shock and complained of being very cold—shivering.

The nurse brought me warm blankets, but I told her I could not really feel them. The next thing I knew, I had a really bad pain in my chest and could not breathe. I reached for the nurse to tell her. I had worked at a VA hospital and was aware of an emergency code alarm that signaled someone was in deep distress. I heard them sound an emergency code, and I knew that was for me. I felt I was dying—pulling away from my body. My lungs had collapsed, and my heart had stopped. The pain passed very quickly, and the next thing I saw and felt was my life like a slideshow, flashing before me. I felt, for the first time in my life, I was encountering the essence or presence of God. I had a new sense of awareness and surroundings that did not include my physical body anymore.

I recognized a very peaceful, joyful, translucent image of Kim's dad, Lyle, who appeared with his hand out, and I knew he had come for me. At that time in my life, he was the only loved one I had ever lost, and I loved him dearly for the short time I had known him. I saw my husband holding a baby surrounded by all my family and friends, standing around an empty grave site that I knew was mine. I began to beg God not to take me yet. I wanted to stay and take care of this wonderful blessing I had been given. Until that moment, I had never prayed harder. I woke up exhaling what felt like a deep breath back into my body with the anesthesiologist calling my name.

Job 33:4 states, The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

I realized I had some sort of tubes down my nose and throat and yanked them out. He told me he was putting an oxygen mask on, and if I took it off, they would have to put the tubes back in. I remained in ICU a few days and did not get to see Carlye as I was running a fever. I wondered if they were keeping me separated from my daughter because something had happened to her. Three days later, I got my first glimpse of her after a long-distance threatening phone call to the hospital administrator from my mother-in-law, Lola, in Nebraska. They rolled me down on a gurney to the pediatric ICU section. There she lay in an incubator with a feeding tube. I realized, at that moment, God had answered my prayer to let me live so I could have the time with her. My purpose in life had been defined when I laid eyes on her. Rather ironic that she would leave this world in a hospice hospital bed with yet another feeding tube. The pediatrician told me they thought her supply of oxygen had been cut off during delivery and she had fluid in her lungs.

We finally got to go home after ten days in the hospital. The first follow-up one-month office visit was not very encouraging as I remember the doctor lifting her arms up and then her legs to demonstrate the lack of muscle tone. Limp like spaghetti were the words he used. Kim asked if exercising the arms and legs while she was lying down would help develop the muscle tone, and the reply we got was it can't hurt, but we would have to wait to see if there would be positive results.

Kim started a regular routine of calisthenics, daily, with Carlye on her arms and legs. The doctor was surprised on the next visit at the muscle tone she had developed and how much she had improved. She hit the normal range on all the charts after that visit until the age of seven. Around that age, she developed a form of juvenile arthritis. She responded to the treatment, and it went into remission within a year's time.

I never knew it was possible to love another human being so much and so unconditionally or how easily that emotion could