Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Hi, everyone. This is Dawn Klem, and you are on my podcast, Milkweed and Monarchs.
[00:00:09] Today I'm going to share a little story with you about divine intervention.
[00:00:19] I know I use that word all the time, but I'm telling you, I do have incidents in my life. And. And they happen kind of regularly, really.
[00:00:30] When I look and think now, how in the world did that even happen?
[00:00:34] How did that come to pass?
[00:00:37] And I definitely take pause and think, well, God has his hand in my life.
[00:00:45] And this is one of those stories. Another one, because I feel like I've told several of these stories, and I feel like I say a lot of times this is divine intervention.
[00:00:57] So I'll let you listen to the story, and then you tell me if you thought it's. It was divine intervention.
[00:01:06] And then. Then I'll be like, okay, I'm not crazy, because sometimes I do think I am.
[00:01:15] But anyway, I was thinking about my mom so much, and every time I think about my mom, I think about this story.
[00:01:27] So my mom had pancreatic cancer, and she got diagnosed with it in May, and she died six months later in October.
[00:01:41] And she had gone to live with my brother. I know I told all of you that she had gone to live with my brother for the last couple months.
[00:01:50] And she was on hospice here. And we just transferred the hospice to take care of her when she went up there with him, too. He was retired, but I wasn't retired. I was still working.
[00:02:04] And so I didn't have much time off at this job, and I was kind of struggling. I had my. Both of my daughters were living here. Well, the oldest one had moved into an apartment, but it wasn't far. It was just down the road from us. So she was at our house most of the time.
[00:02:27] So between my husband, myself, my brother, and my two daughters, we were doing a pretty good job of managing my mom at home.
[00:02:37] And then we had hospice coming in to check on her, and she had the minister coming, and she had the social worker coming, and the nurse and my brother actually got along really well. And so it was kind of a good fit, but I really didn't feel like. And I would come home from work. I mean, I was taking care of patients that were terminally ill. And then I was coming home and trying to take care of my mom.
[00:03:05] I don't think I was doing as good a job as I could have done for her because I was kind of burned out from everything I. Everything all at one time.
[00:03:17] So my brother made the decision that he thought she should really go home with him. And his wife didn't really want him down here all the time. She wanted him at home. And you can't blame her for that.
[00:03:30] He had, he was taking the bus down here and it would drop him off at a gas station which was just down the street from me. So it was so convenient. And he would stay here for a week, go, go home for a week, stay here for a week, go home for a week. And as you can imagine, that was an upheaval for his own home life.
[00:03:52] So he wanted her to go back there with him and then they would. He would be with her all the time. He'd be there. And I think it was good for her to go with him because she kind of inspired him to make some changes in the house. I think he painted every single room in the house. He redid the furniture. Furniture. I mean, she really brought out the best in him while she was up there. And they have a really cute little front porch and they would sit on the front porch together and just talk about everything.
[00:04:28] And I know my mom was happy, there's no doubt about it. I mean, as happy as you can be with pancreatic cancer, right?
[00:04:38] So she went up there in the beginning of September, I think, because she was really only up there for about six weeks. She wasn't up there very long.
[00:04:53] She went up there about the beginning of September and then he, she told him, my brother, it's not going to be long, so you need to call your sister and tell her to come up.
[00:05:09] So she knew she was dying, that it wasn't going to be long.
[00:05:14] So Craig and I and the girls all drove up there. He lived in Sault Ste. Marie and we live in Rockford. So it's like a five hour drive to get up there.
[00:05:28] And we drove up there and sure enough, she did not look like it was going to be much longer at all.
[00:05:36] And I remember the girls and I both got in bed with my. All got in bed with my mom. So really there was four of us in this bed in her bedroom and Craig went downstairs with my brother and we all took a nap together.
[00:05:54] It was probably one of the nicest things that the four of us could have done together. And I know that seems so stupid, strange, but it was just so peaceful for all of us to be in that bed together.
[00:06:08] I mean, it was really, really peaceful.
[00:06:13] So anyhow, we wake up and my brother says, you don't need to stay here tonight. Why don't you stay in this historic hotel downtown and go check out Sue St. Marie and everything and get everything, you know, get some sightseeing in while you're up here. So we just followed his instructions and that's what we did. And the next day we came over and he's like, why don't you. The funeral home is just down the street. Why don't you go see if you can make some arrangements?
[00:06:49] So we went. My husband and I went down to the funeral home and my daughter stayed with my mom and we went down to talk to him. Well, nobody was there. There was no phone. There was a phone number out front on the sign. It says, if you have a question about anything, call this number. No one ever answered the number.
[00:07:14] And I really don't know why I went down there to begin with, because she was on hospice and hospice will take care of all of that. But I think I was just so worked up. I mean, I'm watching my mother die, so I was making rational decisions at all.
[00:07:32] I ended up calling my uncle, who's a physician. He was a physician that worked in Ohio, a medic, internal medicine physician.
[00:07:43] And I called him and he's like, he brought me back to reality, right, dawn, she's on hospice. They'll take care of it. I'm like, yeah, what am I doing here? So Craig and I drove back to the house, and when we got there, my brother was gone.
[00:08:01] Well, where is he? Well, his wife is there. She goes, he's never here. He doesn't spend that much time with your mom. I'm thinking to myself, what is going on here? I had no understanding, and I was just so grief stricken. I didn't really get the whole story at all. I didn't care, though.
[00:08:20] We spent more time with my mom.
[00:08:24] In my mind, I was at peace.
[00:08:26] Hospice was going to come.
[00:08:29] His wife was bathing her and taking care of her, and he was giving her pain medicine if she needed something.
[00:08:38] So it was as good as it was going to be.
[00:08:41] And she really was so emaciated and thin, I knew it wasn't going to be long.
[00:08:49] So we get to the end of the afternoon. My brother never did come back.
[00:08:54] And we decide we're gonna go home because it's a five hour drive and everybody has to go back to work.
[00:09:02] And so we drove home, and when we get home, we all just fell into bed. We were exhausted.
[00:09:15] About 4:30 in the morning, my brother called to tell me that my mom had passed away.
[00:09:25] So we had gone at the perfect time to say goodbye to her. And that was really good. And that Meant a lot to me.
[00:09:35] My mom was good to me, better to my brother.
[00:09:40] She's laughing right now as she hears me saying this.
[00:09:44] You know how mothers and their sons and fathers and their daughters, let's just be honest, that's how it is for everyone, not just me.
[00:09:52] So anyhow, I talked to my brother.
[00:09:57] The hospice had taken care of her just like they said they were. He was going to get her cremated. He wasn't ready for her to have a service. He wanted me to wait a couple weeks.
[00:10:10] So I'm like, okay, I'll wait a couple weeks, whatever you want.
[00:10:15] And he said, and find out about her life insurance policy.
[00:10:22] So I said, I will, I'll find out.
[00:10:26] So in the meantime, in the middle of all of this, my husband got laid off from his job.
[00:10:35] It's like when it rains, it pours, right?
[00:10:39] So he got laid off.
[00:10:41] And actually we didn't care at the time because we were going through so much stuff on our own with all of this that it was actually helpful to have him at home because he could look into things for me since I was still working.
[00:11:00] So he called for me, Mutual of Omaha to find out about her insurance policy. And it was just the standard policy that you have for end of life. I think they're all like $10,000 so that you can pay for the burial expenses kind of thing.
[00:11:25] So I told them, you take care of this for me. So since I'm going to be working and then I can deal with my brother. And he's like, okay, fine.
[00:11:35] So I worked that day and I came home and he's. I said, what? So what did Mutual of Omaha say? He said, they don't, they said, they don't have a policy for your mom. I go, what do you mean they don't have a policy? Said don, that is exactly what they said. They said, we don't have a policy for her on file.
[00:11:56] So I'm like, oh my God.
[00:11:58] So I called my brother to tell him there's no money.
[00:12:02] And he's like, she told us that there was money for her burial. I said, I know, I was sitting right there with you. And sure enough, she did say, yes, I have a ten thousand dollar life insurance policy.
[00:12:17] It should take care of all of the expenses.
[00:12:22] So I said, I don't know what to tell you, Nick, but there's no money there.
[00:12:28] So we went down, Craig and I, the next week end, and we went to the banks and we closed out all of her bank accounts and we came back home. We told them she had expired. I talked to the bank managers at both point places about her expenses. Everything got everything finalized, and I get back home, and I'm at work, and my brother calls me every day.
[00:12:59] Did you find out if that money's there? I said, there's no money there.
[00:13:04] The money. There's no money, Nick. I already told you, there is no money.
[00:13:10] He said, she said, there's money. So there's got to be money. Keep looking.
[00:13:15] Every single day, every morning, without fail, here I am at work. He's calling me, yelling at me at the top of his lungs, where's the money? It's not like there was a lot of money, and we were still gonna have to pay for the cremation and everything else, but he wanted some of the money because he wanted to buy his wife a new car. I'm like, there's no money.
[00:13:40] I can't help you. There's nothing I can do. Okay? I'm telling you, we called Mutual of Omaha, and this is what we said. So finally, after that first week went by, and I had told him so many times, he gave up calling me. He did not call me anymore.
[00:14:01] And we made her arrangements. We had her funeral in Hellsdale.
[00:14:07] He went back home, I went back home.
[00:14:12] And I don't. We never talked again. That was the end of it. We never talked again.
[00:14:19] So in the meantime, though, after her funeral was over, we get a letter in the mail from Mutual of Omaha, and I'm like, what the heck?
[00:14:34] Addressed to my mom.
[00:14:36] So I open the letter up, and it says, Dear Mrs. Farrow, we tried to deduct your automatic payment from your bank account, but your bank account is closed, so we were unable to deduct your payment. Please contact our office. And it left this phone number.
[00:14:59] So I look at Craig. I go, what the heck is going on? Here goes. I don't know, Dawn. I had the policy number when I called them, and this is what they told me. I said, well, there's a phone number on this communication, so I'll take this to work tomorrow, and I will call them myself and find out.
[00:15:25] So I'm at work the next day, and I go in the back office, and I call them up and I say, you know, this is Don Clem. I'm the daughter of Betty Pharaoh. We got this communication in the mail, but my mom has since died.
[00:15:43] And we have contacted your office, and you told us that there is no money.
[00:15:50] And she said, hold on, let me look.
[00:15:53] And she comes back to the phone, and she says, there's A ten thousand dollar policy.
[00:15:59] I said, there is. She said, yes, there's ten thousand dollar policy and you're the executor.
[00:16:07] And you. I looked online, I saw her obituary.
[00:16:14] So you do not even need to do anything except send the death certificate. And Craig had gotten copies of her death certificate if we needed it for the bank or anything.
[00:16:27] So she says, just send me the death certificate and the check is going to be in the mail today. You don't even need to tell anybody that you got the money. The money is for you.
[00:16:38] I'm like, wow, really? And she's like, yes.
[00:16:44] So I was in a complete state of shock, really. It was not what I was expecting at all.
[00:16:54] So I get home that night and I tell Craig the whole entire story.
[00:17:00] He said, I do not know how that even happened, Dawn. I said, I don't either.
[00:17:08] He said, I called them directly. Here's the policy number. They said there was no money in there. I don't know if it was because I was the executor. And so they just weren't giving out information over the phone.
[00:17:25] I have no understanding about why I called and I got the money that day, they sent the check and three days later I had it in my hand.
[00:17:39] Now, neither one of my parents, I mean my parents both worked hard and they worked hard all their life, but they never saved any money. None. No money. No money for anything. As you heard me say in one of the very first episodes, my dad basically said, we're not going to be saving money for you. You make your own way in this world. So there's no money for college or anything. This is your life and you're going to live.
[00:18:10] And when he died, he had a ten thousand dollar policy and my mom used that to pay for his funeral. But that's when you had, you know, like a big, huge funeral and all this kind of stuff and food and everything. And she had a big deal for him and she paid for his cremation. My brother paid for my mom's cremation.
[00:18:37] And, and, and I think he, my brother took care of a lot of the stuff I paid for. All the things like the obituary going in the paper and the little flyers that are handed out in the church, all the, the donation for the food because the ladies of the church put that on.
[00:19:00] So we probably both spent about the same amount of money. I think the obituary wasn't cheap.
[00:19:09] So I think we both spent about the same amount of money. But then I ended up with the $10,000.
[00:19:17] I didn't give my brother any money.
[00:19:20] He had gotten so much money from my mom already, and the money that he got from my mom actually made it. So my mom was hardly living on anything. And that's why she came to live with us a lot. Because she would put her utilities on hold while she was living with us, so she didn't have to pay full bills the whole school year while she was with us during the winter. And same for heat and everything.
[00:19:54] And any leftover money she ever had, she sent to my brother.
[00:20:00] So when I got the check for $10,000, I didn't give him a thing.
[00:20:08] I never really talked to him again, not one time.
[00:20:15] After her funeral, we never saw each other again.
[00:20:19] We never talked again.
[00:20:22] And now he has since died, and I don't talk to his wife and I don't talk to his daughters.
[00:20:31] I think about it a lot because my.
[00:20:36] We came from such a big family.
[00:20:40] We had 19 cousins, you know, and they had seven. They were seven kids. So my mom had six siblings.
[00:20:51] Everybody was so close growing up.
[00:20:54] And now we're just all so split apart.
[00:20:58] And even I was so split apart from my brother.
[00:21:02] My brother and I were 15 months apart in age, but we were not close. We did not get along. We did not see eye to eye. We lived our lives completely differently.
[00:21:16] I don't think he really liked me, actually. I never could figure that part out either. There was something about me that annoyed him.
[00:21:24] But even when we were in school growing up, he didn't like me. He just did not care for me at all.
[00:21:34] And it was okay that he died because my mom was like his hero and his best friend.
[00:21:45] So he went to be with my mom.
[00:21:48] And I always thought that was kind of appropriate, I think. She died in October of 2019, and then Covid hit shortly after that, like in January of 2020.
[00:22:06] And in May of 21, he died May 1, May Day.
[00:22:16] Which is.
[00:22:17] Was strange too.
[00:22:20] But when I look back on that whole situation about the money and everything, I think that was divine intervention.
[00:22:30] I think God was saying to me, this is your money, Don, and you keep the money.
[00:22:37] It wasn't a lot of money, but it didn't matter.
[00:22:40] It came from my mom.
[00:22:43] He never got the money. And when I told him I didn't have that she didn't have the money, I was telling him what I thought was true.
[00:22:51] But I didn't tell him afterwards that there was money because we. We just never talked again.
[00:23:01] And I feel sad that we didn't have a good relationship, but I'VE grown beyond that now.
[00:23:10] And I understand that sometimes families are not what you want them to be.
[00:23:20] Sometimes your friends are more than what your family is.
[00:23:25] And I have so many friends in my life.
[00:23:30] And for that I'm grateful.
[00:23:32] And I was definitely grateful for the $10,000, too.
[00:23:38] And I think about my mom all the time. I think about my brother all the time.
[00:23:43] And I miss my dad, too.
[00:23:47] But on the day that I called the insurance company, I thought, thanks, Mom.
[00:23:59] Thank you for listening to my podcast today.
[00:24:03] It's so funny how things can turn around and you don't even know. You have no understanding of what's going to happen.
[00:24:14] And that's what the story was.
[00:24:17] It was like my mom reaching down or God reaching down.
[00:24:22] Here, dawn, we're going to give you one last thing.
[00:24:26] Your mom wants you to know she loves you.
[00:24:35] Please continue to listen to my podcast.
[00:24:40] I enjoy hearing comments from all of you. It makes my day.
[00:24:48] There'll be another one coming out soon.
[00:24:54] Until the next time.
