Elaine Marie Cooper Author

Historical Fiction That Grabs Your Heart and Feeds Your Soul

loss of a child

Bethany’s Calendar

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Our lives changed forever eleven years ago today when my daughter’s “calendar” on earth ended. But her life in heaven had just began.

She was only 24 and my family never imagined that our bright, funny and faith-filled daughter would have such a short stay with us. But sometimes cancer interferes with our hopes and dreams. And sometimes, God has other plans.

My family has  been through so much in the ensuing years, yet we continue to be amazed at the life she shared with us, as well as the impact she had on so many others. We will always treasure her in our hearts, and look forward to seeing her again in eternity.

The most amazing thing about this eleventh year has been writing Bethany’s Calendar, the story of her final days on earth as she suffered from brain cancer. The fact that I had the strength to write it at all attests to the power of intercessory prayer as others raised me up in this difficult writing task. Although it was emotionally exhausting, the words and the story flowed.

Now Bethany’s Calendar is on the verge of being released in a few weeks. I am amazed at the smooth transition from writing first draft to now anticipating holding the final copy of the book. I can’t wait to share it with others and PRAY that it helps patients and their families who are in similar circumstances.

Bethanys Calendar Cover

I’ll be honest. Going through final edits this past weekend brought more than one tear. There is no loss like saying goodbye to your child.

Yet I am not bitter, nor do I repeat the often spoken phrase, “No parent should have to bury their child.” While that may be the human perspective, God’s perspective about life is that He is God, and He decides when our work on this earth is complete. Sometimes that is as soon as a child is birthed or it may be in old age. But “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” Job 1:21 NIV

Here are some of the words from “God is God” by Steven Curtis Chapman. This song played on my car radio—seemingly every time I went driving during Bethany’s illness. The verses are a reminder to me that God is the creator, with his purposes for His creation:

 

God is God and I am not

I can only see a part of the picture He’s painting

God is God and I am man

So I’ll never understand it all

For only God is God.

 

Launch for Bethany’s Calendar is December 12, 2014. It would have been her 36th birthday.

 

 

 

 

Is Jesus Really All I Need?

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Today would have been my daughter Bethany’s 35th Birthday.

Today is also the day that I will bring a small gift bag with a toy and gift card for another baby girl born on this date. It has become my husband’s and my tradition. I bring the gift bag to a nurse at a local maternity unit and ask her to give the bag to the first baby girl born on December 12. I briefly tell the nurse why and then when they have a look of compassion melt into their face, I thank them and leave before my tears begin to start.

It is our way of honoring Bethany’s memory every year.

But this year, the sadness seems deeper. It has been a year of more loss: The deaths of my Mom and a friend. And I lost a daughter-in-law to divorce.

It’s not that the year did not have many blessings and I am grateful for those. But during the holidays, losses seem enhanced. They make the cloudy days a bit darker and the Christmas lights less bright.

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So in seasons of pain and sadness, is Jesus really all I need?  Can He really be my comforter and my all in all?

The answer is “yes,” if I have faith and trust in HIS ways and not my own.

We were never promised comfort in this world, nor freedom from pain and heartache. It does not take more than a few moments of watching news to reveal this sad fact. But I know one way to pull out of my own self-wallowing is to focus on others needs. To pray for others like Pastor Saeed who is imprisoned in Iran for his faith in Jesus. To pray for a friend who’s husband died suddenly this year. To pray for a homeless person on the street.

And to pray that God would show me how to make a difference in others lives in some tangible way—to be a blessing to them in their need.

When I bring the gift in Bethany’s honor to the maternity ward, I always pray that the gift card will go to someone who truly needs it. I pray it will bless them.

And I pray that, if you are experiencing loss in this Christmas season, you will keep focused on what is truly important: Sharing Jesus’ love with others.

 

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him; and even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” 1 Peter: 1:6-9 NIV

 

 

 

 

Remembering Bethany

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Today, October 20th, 2013, marks the tenth anniversary of our daughter Bethany’s Homecoming. Not a college homecoming event, mind you. It was her final homecoming to heaven.

The discovery of her brain tumor shortly after her 23rd Birthday was a shock, to say the least. Months of treatment followed. Our lives were flung into a pit of despair, exhaustion, and grief, while our desperate faith clung to the hem of God’s garment as He said to us, “Trust me.” And we did. And we still do.

God never promised that our lives would be without sorrow or challenges that would feel much worse than a blow with a two by four. But He did promise He would never leave us or forsake us.

While many of my friends and even distant relatives only know Bethany as “my daughter who died from a brain tumor,” she was so much more.

 

Bethany and I, a year before we knew about the cancer
Bethany and I, a year before we knew about the cancer

She was the short one in the family, nearly a foot shorter than her older brother, Ben. But Bethany had what I always described as a “tall personality,” with more spunk and determination than all the rest of us put together.

When she was only two-years-old, her Daddy taught her the Shel Silverstein poem about a Polar Bear in the Frigidaire. The words still play in my mind as I can envision her rise to her full, midget-like stature and say the entire poem to amazed listeners. She delighted in the performance!

When her little brother, Nate, was born, she wanted to mother him to the point where I had to intervene. “If you do everything for him, he’ll never learn to do it himself,” I would gently say to her. She backed off—just a bit! The two of them were close their entire lives.

She admired her older brother, Ben, so much. In her last months she told him that she’d be watching him from heaven as he flew his military jet. I overheard her say to him, “I’ll tell everyone up there, ‘Look, there’s my brother!’” She was so proud of his service to our country.

Rather than just remember her as a cancer patient, I love to remember Bethany’s delightful legacy. She was a defender of the weak, a friend to the friendless, a comforter to the elderly in nursing homes, a brilliant student, a hilarious jokester, a believer in Jesus Christ, and as genuine a person as they come.

Daisies: Bethany's Favorite Flower
Daisies: Bethany’s Favorite Flower

Her writing awed and amazed me. She dreamed of being a writer but those dreams were not in God’s plans.

I never dreamed that I would carry on her hoped-for legacy by becoming an author. I wish that she could have become the writer instead. But our ways are not God’s ways.

Bethany’s favorite Bible verse was Jeremiah 29:11: “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Reading that verse on her tombstone, her brother Ben said, “In a way, God did take care of her future by bringing her home to Him in heaven.”

Indeed. And someday we can all be united again in the heavenly realm. That is our ultimate hope—our ultimate joy as we remember my daughter, Bethany, on this day of her Homecoming Anniversary.