Stefanie and the Mercy of God

Stefanie Sugdon at her baptism in February of this year.

Our friend with advanced Parkinson's Disease hadn't been to church in five weeks. When I got back from Mallorca I determined I would visit her and see how she was doing. She told me through her vocalizing device that she had been in Dorchester Hospital for a week with pneumonia. Harry, her friend who had been helping her come to church, was in the hospital having had emergency surgery three weeks ago. I asked her if she wanted to come to church, and she nodded with wide eyes. I arranged for our friend Alexandra to pick her up. When I left we hugged, and she cried. She did this the last time Joanie and I saw her. We didn't know why. I let her cry until she was done, and asked her, "Are you going to be okay?" She nodded. I left.

I saw her at church on Sunday, and had a chance to pray for her as Joanie was sitting with her after the service. She looked like she wasn't doing very well. Alexandra and Michael Graham helped Stefanie get back to the nursing home.

I was riding into town to drop off the girls at friends' for a sleepover when I got a phone call: the nursing home was telling me Stefanie was at Emergency at Kingston Hospital, and she wasn't expected to live long. Joanie turned around and dropped me off at Twickenham Station. I caught two trains that got me to Kingston Hospital.

I introduced myself at the desk. They brought me back to where Stefanie was. Before I saw her I was brought out front again; Stefanie had died, about forty minutes before, and they were about to inform her sister Lesley. Then they would let me back where she was.

I saw Lesley just after she was informed. Then we went back to see the body. There I was able to pray with her and offer to do anything possible to help. As she was leaving she asked me to do the funeral. That will be on Friday, October 8.

As we were there beside the body I was aware that though she was alone when she died, Jesus had been there to receive her. I also became aware of His mercy and His timing. Stefanie had seen her mother, sister, son and daughter just the night before. After not being at church for five weeks, I had come just in time to arrange that. When Alexandra had picked up Stefanie, she wondered if everything was all right, and asked her if she really wanted to go to church. Stefanie nodded her head, wide-eyed, wordless. Yes, she really wanted to go. She was able to see her family and go to church, and then she was gone.

I always had the impression that she was mentally all there, active, but imprisoned in the body that responded less and less to her active thought. It is wonderful to think that now she is with Jesus, able to freely express herself, to move, to see Jesus. All the questions are answered, all the tears are wiped away.

All I can think of is the mercy of God.