DaughterOfTheKing on X:

The day before my ex-husband died in a shootout with police, after robbing a bank, he called me to tell me he loved me, and he asked me to look after his mother if anything happened to him.

He didn't tell me about the bank robbery, but I'd left him years prior because he'd become dangerous. He threatened to kill and rob drug mules at the border, and to rob banks for years.

At the time of his death, I was remarried to a former LEO.

My second husband and I tried to help him for years, and failed.

Despite my lack of belief that he would actually rob a bank, I gave my word that I would look after her if she were ever alone.

Throughout our marriage, my first husband kept me away from his mother, Joan, because she was 'crazy'. I spent maybe 10 hours with her over the course of our 16 year marriage. When she talked about Jesus, we left.

At the time of the robbery, almost her entire family was dead, except for a cousin. Joans daughter died a year prior. Her husband was dying in an assisted living home, across town, but inaccessible to her. Now, her son was dead.

She was in assisted living, powerless to visit her husband.

She was a lifelong, Holy Spirit filled Christian.

After the trauma of the bank robbery it took me six months to pull myself together and visit her. I did it only because I promised my ex-husband that I would.

I deeply regret waiting so long.

When I arrived at the home, and saw her, my heart broke again. She was a husk of the woman I'd occasionally visited during my marriage to her son.

Her face was puffy, her eyes red from endless crying. It took her a moment to recognize me and my fear of her hating me for abandoning her son vanished as she grabbed me and held on.

My second husband and I visited once a week for two years. We took her shopping, and for lunch. She'd been a pilot, so we took her to the mall to ride on the slingshot ride, and we took her to visit her dying husband.

When she needed memory care we visited her at the lockdown home.

We were her only visitors for a year at the memory care home.

A month before she died, they prematurely moved her to hospice. Her cousin was her guardian; I had no legal rights as her former daughter in law.

I found out she was in hospice on my weekly visit. They'd moved her to a staging room, where there was no intercom. Then, they forgot to feed her or give her water or medicine.

They literally had to find her, at my demand.

I canceled work for a month, to stay with her. If I left, they didn't feed her, or give her water or morphine.

So I slept in the bed with her. I was an atheist and hated the God I didn't believe in, but I laid there giving her water on a sponge and read the Bible to her 12 hours a day.

I'd fallen in love with her.

It was all for her, but I soon found myself weeping while reading to her. She smiled at me, and just kept asking me to read God's word.

Her cousin came the last week of Joan's life. Cheryl sat quietly in the corner, reading her Bible to herself. Cheryl wanted me to leave. In her eyes I was a heathen. She refused to read the Bible to Joan.

The home wanted me to leave, saying that Joan was 'only hanging on because she felt loved, and I needed to leave so she could let go and die.'

Two days before she passed, in a coma, they finally kicked me out. Covid hit and they only allowed one visitor. Cheryl had legal rights, so I was barred.

Years later I can see the goodness of God in all that suffering. He had me reading the Bible, loving a woman who could give me nothing.

He taught me patience, perseverance, and He showed me His word.

I will love Joan forever. I can't wait to see her in heaven. She was a blessing in so many ways.

This is her on the swing at the mall (she had to sit in my lap for safety reasons), and in my lap at my home.

I think about her every day and feel the extraordinary love of Jesus, every time.

I love you Joan, sweet child of God. Dance. Let heaven rejoice at the blessing you surely brought to heaven.