Dear Mom: Feliz Lucas and the ‘stewardship’ of a mother losing her child
A parent losing their child is one of life's most unthinkable pains—but Feliz Lucas finds the strength through God to tell the story of Courageous Caitie.
This Mother’s Day, PhilSTAR L!fe caught up with mom-preneur and online personality Feliz Lucas on her journey of grief, glory, and endless faith.
Courageous Caitie
Before anything: this isn't really just my story. I think it’s God’s story and how he really works in each and everyone’s life. It’s not just a story of grief or love, but one of restoration and revival.
A year into my marriage, I gave birth to our daughter, Caitie. I was very idealistic and controlling at the time, I had this idea that I'd homeschool and at the same time work and do all of these things while raising our daughter—but God had a way of humbling me.
Three years down the line, my daughter got sick. It was at Christmas that she started to have tummy aches, bloatedness, and insect bites and bruises. During Christmas time, that was when my daughter’s tummy would really be painful. On the eve of New Year, we decided to bring her to the emergency room. They couldn’t figure out or diagnose what happened with her. Her body wasn’t absorbing the nutrients and lipids that were being given to her, so we went from hospital to hospital, doctor to doctor to have a clear diagnosis.
Eventually, we started to journalize and update our friends and created the Courageous Caitie Facebook page. We created that to really update our friends on how she was and it was also my way of processing hope or courage with what was happening.
Like the doctors, I didn’t have the answers. I was constantly thinking back to the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac. I was willing to follow the Lord’s will, but maybe He also had a secret rescue plan—just like with Abraham and Isaac.
We then decided to send her to Singapore, we really wanted to keep her fighting. After boosting, we immediately flew her to Singapore and we just stayed over a kindhearted couple for free. After three weeks, they finally got to diagnose her with a very, very rare cancer that is JMML (Juvenile Myelomonocytic Leukemia). It only happens in 1 out of a hundred and it happens in Caucasians and boys, so for it to happen for a girl and an Asian, all the more that it was rare and devastating.
There was no protocol to follow, so we were really just holding on and everybody was praying and really trying to do our best to make each day worthwhile. But her body just couldn’t take it and, come Easter Sunday, she passed away.
Healing through community
It was so difficult for me. I tried to attend different retreats, counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists to cope after her loss. During the time that I was depressed, I would also see a lot of women in the Glam-O Mamas Facebook group also going through something. We all didn’t have the answers, but we leaned on each other during those particularly tough times.
By God’s grace, in the process, I was able to see things differently and in terms of our depression, we understood where it was coming from. Our deep questions and our deep hurts didn’t have an answer but we understood what was going on and we were eventually able to process it.
There was a lot of purging and processing involved. I think that’s a gift also that grief brought in. God used what the enemy intended to harm me, to break me down, to defeat me, and He made it for good.
Honestly right now, I can say that “Lord, I’m so assured that my daughter is with you and at the same time I don’t understand it, but I’m grateful for what has happened because the whole family became a whole unit.” I am more assured with who I am now and I am less fearful of death. We talk about it even with our kids now. After Caitie’s passing, it wasn’t such a taboo topic anymore.
So what keeps me going is that the end of it, I just really want to hear my father in heaven tell me, “You were faithful, and that was enough."
Parents as stewards
For me right now, being a parent is about stewardship. Your children are just lent to you, and what do you do with things that are lent to you? You have to take care of them until they return to their Owner!
Caitie was just lent to me for just three and half years. What did I do with the life I lived with her before I turned her over to God? I’d like to think that God would look at me and say “Hey, you did well. You did well with what I owned.” Motherhood is just really stewardship and being faithful because it’s not mine, but I still want to be excellent with what was lent to me.
What keeps me going is the end of it, I just really want to hear my father in heaven tell me “You were faithful, and that was enough.”
There’s no perfect mom, just a faithful one
Ultimately, having that perspective made me less controlling as a mom, it made me less idealistic and really more of a relaxed mom. My children don’t need to be perfect now, they just need to be faithful with whatever they’re doing. They don’t have to be successful in math, I just need them to be faithful in doing math. They don’t have to learn it right away, we can take our time in just being able to do it together.
Again, I really think it’s not a one thing story but I think it’s really a journey of discovering who I am in Christ. I don’t have to be successful in being a parent, I don’t have to be a successful entrepreneur, and I don’t have to be a successful friend.
I’ve learned that because of our journey that all we really need is what God really wants from me: is to be faithful. I don’t need to be a successful mom, I just need to be a faithful mom. Even if it gets tiring, I don’t need to push it today, I can delay tomorrow and I can just be faithful to do it again.
As a mother, when we surrender to the idea that we are really stewards of God’s children, we become more excellent that we want to give it back to the owner full and complete.