One year ago, On September 27th, 2023 at exactly 4:00AM Angela Christine Roberts past away and her last breath was taken back by God, six years after she was diagnosed with stage 3B cervical cancer. Within a year, the cancer had spread to her lungs: stage 4 terminal. It was a long, grueling and very sad part of both of our lives but eventually her cancer triumphed and won the battle for her life. Angela’s long suffering had come to an end.
The last 24 hours her hands curled in and were completely contorted. The death rattle began around that time; a wet, crackling, gurgling noise that came from the back of her throat. The inside of her mouth was completely white, completely parched from her lack of adequate water intake for the past weeks. She woke up when I was administering her scheduled dose of morphine. I had her propped up with pillows. She wanted to be partially sitting up as she lay there. She knew that there was something wrong with her throat. It scared her and she started to put her shaking hands by her neck as if she was choking. I quickly told her that I was giving her her scheduled morphine round and that I that I would increase her dosage. She knew what I was telling her and she quickly fell back to sleep. She never woke up again. She died hours later. That moment is permanent scared in my memory. I didn’t want her to be scared.
Angela was a beautiful mother to her children, Elliott Francis, age 12, and Daisy Virginia, age 11. She was a wonderful wife and the best friend that anyone could have ever wanted. She was my everything. She was such a sweet girl made for a sweet boy – Always a good start to a long-lasting love. She loved me for all that I was with all of her heart.
My instructions where straightforward and clear before she passed away. I was not to remarry. I was to grow my hair out. And, I was to be married to God. All with one objective: to get me and my two beautiful children to Heaven to see “Mama” once again, one day. To live happily ever after in Paradise in the eternal Angelic state as heavenly beings as a family once and forever more.
As God took his breath back from her at the last moment of her fleshly life, mine was taken too. Shock set in. I imagined a group of Angels come down from above. There were four of them. One for each of her limp quarters. They gently carried her off and up to the sky where a Chariot of fire with horses of fire awaited them. In a whirlwind they were gone. The chariot and horsemen of Israel carried another one their righteous to the Heavens above.
Up and through the cosmos of the firmament they flew past the sun and the moon and the stars. Up the straight ladder to Heaven the blazed. The Angels of the Chariot said together, speaking to Angela, “look, there are the angels who have fallen from Heaven,. The ones who have lost there dominion. The ones devoid of any light or goodness. Cut from the Heavens, devoid of their Father’s spirit, they are without love. So far removed they can not see the Gates. Bound to the lower realm, they hear not a sound from above. In their silence, they watch in envy, jealous of your destination. They are left with only rage against God’s earthly Kingdom, the righteous ones of Israel, plotting to bring them down.”
Surely Angela’s senses would have been working at some point as the Angels of the Chariot told her what was happening. Even if she was blinded or too weak to move during this time, she would have known what they were telling her. She knew where she was headed…through the expanse of the heavens above the earth to the other side.
The Chariot of fire traveled the straight path of the ladder shown to Jacob, where only the faithful and loyal Angels of Yahweh ascend and descend the Heavens. Surely her lip began to tremble as her awareness grew. On the mountain of the garden, they rose to arrive at the Great White Throne room of God.
“You have arrived”, she heard from the four Angels as her chariot came to a halt.
The four Angels of the Chariot of fire with horses of fire gently placed her down on her knees in front of the throne of God. All of the the Heavens were there. The trumpets played as King David lead his band. The Angels of the Throne said, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty”. Her name, “Angela Christine Roberts” was announced and there was a cheer from the multitude of multitudes of Angels that Echoes down the Hall of time for eternity. Weak and flooded with emotions, “Rise up!” she heard. Angela looked up and she saw his face for the first time and was overwhelmed with…
Angela loved her babies. I fell in love with her all over again when she became a mama. Watching her love blossom into motherhood did something to me. There is something very sweet and tender about a mother and her babies. Her love never failing them. Our babies were a blessing. It really made her sad to know that she was going to die and have to leave her children behind, motherless.
We were together for almost 18 years. The first 6 years we were together it was just the 2 of us. That was a nice time for us because we could date each other. We had a lot fun together. We spent all of our free time together.
The next 5 1/2 years we spent raising our precious children together. Most of our dates were taking the kids to the zoo.
We had an online vintage shop and lived 5 minutes away from the Ft. Worth zoo. We were with each other 24 hours a day, everyday, just the 4 of us. We would take them to the zoo a couple times a week when the weather was nice. That was a really nice thing to do as a family spending the day outside together. In the pictures above we took the kids to the zoo for photo day. I took our good camera and Angela dressed them up and fixed their hair and cleaned them up all nice. Daisy was in a vintage dress and a vintage petticoat. Angela was so excited about how the pictures turned out. We lost the originals when our house leaked from a freak storm and only leaked on her laptop on the farmhouse table. That happened two times. Two freak storms. Two laptops ruined in the exact same spot with all of our photos. I recovered the photos above from when she emailed them to her parents.
This was Elliott’s first trip to the zoo. It looks like he needed assistance to sit up so I am guessing he was 3 or 4 months old here. Mama’s got ’em. She doesn’t know it yet but she is pregnant with Daisy. Irish twins they are.
In the picture above, Elliott is with me several years later. He was in the bottom 6% for weight for his age. He was so tiny.
The last 6 years we were together was Angela sick with terminal cancer and I was her primary care taker. She was handicapped from her radiation treatment and could not leave the house because of the damage to her bowels. We didn’t get to date anymore. It was a very sad period in our lives. Her illness, the choices we made along the way, things we encountered on hospice and the things we learned; I will discuss this in future blogs. There is a lot to cover.
Angela wanted to know as much as she could to understand the situation she was in and what her options were. She did a lot of research on her cancer and she shared what she found with me and we discussed everything together. We were always a team, A family that made all of our decisions together.
Her Gynecological Oncologist did not think she would live a year when she was first diagnosed. She lived 6 years with stage 4 terminal cancer. Her bonus years we spent together were a special time even though she was so sick.
Through all of her pain and sickness and suffering she never lost faith in her God.
It has been a really hard year adjusting to being alone without my wife to raise our children. It has been the saddest period in my life. I was absolutely crushed when she passed away. I was OK for the first few months because I took the kids out everyday to the park or hiking trails or to the beach. We did a lot of day trips to different places. That time was nice because we spent our days together to start the next chapter in all of our lives, growing and healing together as a family. But once reality set in for me I was crushed and spent about the next 8 months after that curled up in bed, sobbing from heart ache, trying to recall every memory I have ever had in my life, fearful that I would forget everything. I couldn’t stop crying even when I was in public. I didn’t even wipe my tears away. When I looked at myself in the mirror I could not smile. I couldn’t even fake a smile. I looked really bad. Elliott begged me over and over to “just stop crying”. But, I couldn’t. And, I knew it. So I just let it happen and didn’t try to fight it. Until, one day I started crying less. I looked in the mirror and there was 1/2 a smile. I knew that was progress.
I wrote this 3 months after she died…’Watching my wife and best friend of almost 18 years die in front of my eyes did something to me. I lost a piece of me – mentally and physically. It shifted my state into a perpetual state of shock. One that I did not see coming even though I knew that one day her cancer would win the battle for her life and she would no longer be with us. But, it did, and three months later after her passing I am still in shock. My heart feels like it is constantly falling into the pits of my stomach and my stomach feels like it’s in my throat. I cant breathe and I always have the sensation that I am on the verge of throwing up. All of that is secondary to the sadness that I feel for the loss of my sweet friend. Consumed by grief, I can not stop crying. I have a wound that aches to the bottom of my core. Sometimes it’s just a tear streaming down my face. Sometimes I cry so hard that I loose control of myself. The crying is so absolute that my entire being in nothing more than a curled up ball of affliction. Agony takes over and I can only let if run its course. I have never cried so much in my life even though I thought I was prepared to loose her. I knew the day was always going to come. But, you can not prepare yourself for the loss of someone you truly love. You can only try to brace yourself for impact and try to pick yourself up a little bit at a time.’
In the last couple of months I have been laughing more and joking with my children. My old happy self is starting to return. It makes me happy that I am not so sad anymore. But I know I will miss my wife everyday for the rest of my life and I still cry everyday. I know Angela would want me happy over sad, always. When I look in the mirror I want to see my true self: To be happy, healthy, strong and pure of heart.
We were with each other 24 hours a day since 2010. We had an online vintage shop back in the days when they weren’t trending and you could find anything you wanted to sell at a thrift store for penny’s on the dollar. We shopped together and ran our errands together and spent all of our free time together, always. And, we raised our children together, as one.
We restored and lived in three different 100 year old plus houses together. We currently live in our 4th house to restore, a beach house in the Pacific Northwest, Washington. It’s a 5 minute walk to the beach. Angela’s cancer came back strong and was on the verge of causing her pneumonia and death after just 9 months of us moving to our new house. She was in a slow decline for the next several years and all work on our house was put on hold. That always made me feel bad that we were not be able to finish this house together. There is a lot to do on it and I have some good ideas to make it a true beach house. I think I’ll document the completion of our house on Youtube. I want to make it into something special that she would have loved to live in and call her home. A true beach house.
Today, me and the kids take Pepper, one of our three cats, everywhere we go now. That makes me happy. We found three kittens, all brothers, shortly after Angela started her 1st round of Chemo. Pepper always laid with her and comforted her and was her cat ever since. She was as worried about what was to be with Pepper after her passing as what was to happen with me. Elliott decided immediately that Pepper was now his cat and that Pepper would be traveling with us where ever we went from then on. This clip is from his first trip out into the local grocery store one year ago. He is in his cat backpack that we had just gotten for him.
Taking Pepper with us on our travels has really helped us as a family. I like taking my cat out with me in public. Everybody loves Pepper!
Angela told us that we were to leave the house after she passed away. She read too many horror stories of the surviving spouse wanting the family to witness things that they shouldn’t. One guy took his young children to the crematory to witness mom be cremated. He had them watch her be put in the fire and the worker asked the children if they wanted to pull the lever to shut the door. The Dad said his children are permanently traumatized from it. If given the chance, these things should be thought out in advance. She gave me strict instructions about what we were to do after she passed. She did not want her babies any more traumatized than they had to be. We were to leave to house and go out and do something while the mortuary retrieved her body from the house.
By the time the hospice nurse came to verify her death several hours later, I took the kids to McDonald’s for breakfast. Something we hadn’t been able to do as a family in years. With Angela being so sick and with us homeschooling our children, the kids did not leave the house much for the last several years of their mother’s life. If I needed to run to the store, they would stay with Mama to help take care of her. And, since she was bed ridden, she wanted her children near her somewhere in the house, where she could hear them and know they were there. They were house bound with her. They didn’t know any difference. And, they could not have been better behaved children during this time. They were very quite and helped any way needed.
After a nice breakfast together, we went by the beach to see the sun coming up and took this picture. Our shadows were long from the early sun and we had fun seeing that.
After the beach, we went back to the skatepark in town and the kids climbed up the ramps and ran around like the were free. They were laughing and smiling and having the time of there lives. The skate park is next to one of the greens on a golf course. They made it over there and began rolling down the gently sloping manicured grounds in pure happiness and joy. Something I hadn’t seen in them in a long time. That made me happy. I took this video of Daisy…
As I watched my children roll down the green, I imagined Angela in Heaven, rolling down a dew kissed hill in the meadows of Heaven, laughing in pure joy, young, vibrant, strong and healthy and free of all of her sickness, pains and burdens. She was filled with nothing but the pure love of Heaven from God himself having the time of her life…In her perfect state. I like thinking about that. It makes me happy to think about her so happy now.
Angela read almost every blog or book or story that she could find on dyeing with cancer. She would read out loud to me the parts that interested her and we would talk about them through our experience with her illness. We talked about everything, what to expect, what you can not know and how best to carry on. I always held her hand (except when I was rubbing her head). She really wanted to read a book that described how the person died, what it was like for them. A book of what they went through and experienced in the end. I told her, “how are you going to find that. They didn’t live to tell about it. They died.” She said “I know.” She kept reading though. We did learn a lot picking up good advise here and there. Some of the stories were crazy. A lot of men left their wives when they found out they were dying. There were some witches. Lot’s of backstabbing and throwing there beloved under the bus after they died. they wrote entire books about it. Very strange.
She also read out of the bible and we would discuss passages and what they meant to God, and how they relate to the bigger story – The true meaning of scripture. We discussed a little know story in the Bible of Anna, or Avva in Hebrew. One of only a handful of prophetesses in the bible and the only one to be named. I always thought about this story as Angela’s health began to decline. We talked about Anna a lot and her tragic beginning to her life of loosing her husband at a young age.
She could not have been more than 25 years old, married to her husband 7 years when he died. She must have truly love him for she never married again. She was widowed for the rest of her life until she was 84. 25 years old when her life as she knew it changed forever. Never loosing faith in her God, she worshiped at the temple day and night for the rest of her life. Always honoring God, Always believing in the path that God had set for her.
She must have greeted every young mother as they walked into the temple grounds with their first born son for their child’s purification rites in obedience with the Torah. She must have told anyone that would listen about the baby, the Messiah that was to come though the temple gates one day. She prophesized of the day to come when the 1st born son of God would arrive and come through the gates. The King of all Man kind. The redeemer was coming. She never lost hope, she never stopped believing and she never stopped loving no matter how hard it was to live alone without her husband. She had faith in her God and his plan for her.
It is not known how long Anna lived after a young Mary carried her first born son, Yahshua of Bethlehem, with Joseph to the temple in Jerusalem for the purification rites and redemption of the first born son required by the law of Moses. The moment had arrived that Anna always knew would come. The day she greeted the new born Messiah at the temple. She never wandered from the path that God had set for her. And she was rewarded. She blessed the new born baby at the temple of Yahweh. She saw the Messiah with her own eyes. For 59 years she waited and prayed and probably blessed every 1st born baby boy in God’s kingdom that was carried to the temple for purification. The redeemer had come. What an honor she must have felt. And, no doubt when Anna’s last breath was taken back by her God, she was at peace with her God and knew exactly where she was to go upon her death, to carry on forever in the Heavens above…
My wife knew that, so how could I live my life any different being an eye witness of how to become an Angel.
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