Sid Roth - I Saw My Mom in Heaven! Her Words Will Make You Cry
Sid Roth: Welcome, Holy Spirit. Go and flow. My guest, Deborah Kline-Iantorno was born in New York City to a Jewish father and a Puerto Rican mother of Jewish Sephardic descent. Tell us about your early life. I mean, go back even a little bit of ancestry.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: All right. Well, like you said, very diverse history starting with my great-grandfather, who was a cantor in Poland, who had two daughters who he shipped out to the United States to the holy land of New York City as things were getting very, very difficult. The mood was changing in Poland. So there was my grandmother and her sister in New York. In order to start to assimilate, so to speak, they publicly changed their last name from Berman to Burke. And of course, Grandma...
Sid Roth: And for those that may not catch what she's saying, antisemitism was and is ferocious worldwide so many Jewish people changed their last name so they wouldn't be identified as Jews. It's that simple.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: That's exactly right. And Grandma finally met another person, a Jewish man who she married, last name of Kline, and then they had my dad. But in order now to protect him, they asked him too to please use that name, and it was for his protection. So instead of Stanley Kline, he was Stanley Burke until he got a little older and then said, "No way". And Dad met my mom, a little 4'8, feisty, little Puerto Rican who is also from Sephardic descent on her mother's side, whose family came from Spain. That was kind of interesting because they kind of sent me to Puerto Rico. Bottom line is I have been raised with very diverse background.
Sid Roth: And what really was amazing to me about when you were in Puerto Rico, although she was Jewish, she sent you to Catholic school.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: She did. She did. Can you believe a nice Jewish girl with the tag of "Deborah Kline" was raised as a Catholic?
Sid Roth: What happened?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: My parents, when they were deciding to thaw out from cold New York, they decided to move to Puerto Rico, but they sent me ahead. My grandmother was actually a devout Catholic, even though she was from Jewish descent.
Sid Roth: You know what thrilled me is your grandmother, even though she was a devout Catholic, did something I saw my grandmother do and I saw my mother do, and that's exactly what she did. It's a Jewish tradition. Explain that.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Yep. Every Friday night.
Sid Roth: Did she know it was Jewish?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: She did not know exactly what it was.
Sid Roth: What was it?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: What she would do is on every Friday night, she'd close the blinds and she'd light two candles on the table and she'd have us all sit around. She would put a head covering on and most of the time, she did a little motion before lighting the candles. And then she'd stare at them, maybe occasionally murmured something that we didn't quite understand, and then she'd say, "Amen," and we all had to say, "Amen". I had asked her what was it that she was doing and she said she didn't really know. It was something that her mother did and her mother's mother did, so she was just imitating and following that tradition from their home.
Sid Roth: What'd you think about that?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Well, after knowing the stories of what happened to my grandmother, and my father would explain things to me, and seeing my grandmother having to close blinds, things started to connect in my mind. And I started to feel a real resentment and a bitterness towards God, even though I was going to Catholic school, which I loved. They had a great music program. That's what I do. They had me do all the solos. They were really good people. Just whenever they talked about God, I wanted nothing to do with it because I felt, "How could there be a God"? and know all these stories that my grandmother had to change her name. She never got to see the rest of her family. They were all murdered in the Holocaust. And I was just, "There's no way there's a God, so I identified as an atheist".
Sid Roth: And you pursued a career as a professional singer in which in the midst of that career, you met your husband in the music industry.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: I did.
Sid Roth: And you were really headed for really great success. And then as often happens to people, bad things happen to good people. Tragedy struck. What happened?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: We were married. We had two daughters. Our first daughter was born with cerebral palsy and she passed away a month before her eighth birthday. That was really tough for me because I adored that child. When she died, I really got angry and bitter.
Sid Roth: Angry with who?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: With the God that I didn't believe in.
Sid Roth: That's what I thought. Okay.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: And so I know it sounds so ironic, going behind a building, devastated and yelling and cussing in this God that I didn't believe in. I just lashed out. We decided at that point that I wanted to move to Las Vegas. That's where my parents lived. Now we were in California at the time.
Sid Roth: So you wanted comfort from your parents?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: I did. And my mom was my very best friend and I wanted to be with her, near her and my dad. And while I was house hunting, everything was just wonderful. I knew this was it. And my husband, who had a great job, has always been such a good support, was willing to let go of all of that for me to be with them. Unfortunately, as if one wasn't enough, my mother and I were joking around when she suddenly had this pain in her back. The next morning, I heard a subtlety in her little Puerto Rican accent, "Debbie"? And I opened the door and I saw my dad standing and he was just pointing, pointing to the door. When I went in, my mother was face down. I turned her over off the floor and realized she was not breathing. Called 911, they were explaining to me how to give her CPR. In the meantime, my other daughter was watching, from the doorway, her mommy frantically trying to save her mommy. And my mom did not make it. Her aorta had ruptured.
Sid Roth: What effect did this have on you?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Even more anger, that I was...
Sid Roth: Again, anger to who? The God that you didn't believe existed.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Exactly. This time, when I was in the hospital, I had followed the paramedics, they tried to reassure me I did everything correctly. It's just that her aorta had ruptured. They asked me to come in and say goodbye. And when I saw her like that and I knew that that was it, I'd never see her again, I stormed down the halls.
Sid Roth: This is in the hospital.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: This is in the hospital. I'm storming down the halls, went outside. Now Las Vegas is an interesting place because it's desert. They don't have grass. Their landscaping is all rocks, my perfect weapon to throw up at the sky. Picking up rocks, throwing them, yelling and screaming and cussing at this God I didn't believe in and yelling.
Sid Roth: What did you yell?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: This time, I was just like, "If you are real, which I can't believe you would be, all you do is burn us in ovens and take everything that we love. I can't believe in you, I won't believe in you, and I hate you".
Sid Roth: Your older daughter was devastated when she saw her grandmother die and she turned to drugs, and Deborah sinks even deeper into pain. Then, the unexpected happens.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: My daughter sat us down, said, "Mom, Dad. I have to tell you this, but I'm a drug addict and I'm hooked on crystal meth". We got her into a drug rehab. I mean, I was so devastated that somebody who...
Sid Roth: Your daughter dies, your first-born, your mother dies, and now your daughter's into drugs. How much can one person take?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Well, I'll tell you I was on the brink. For somebody who has always been in control of things, I was completely out of control. God had a plan that after leaving her in the rehab and going back home three hours away, I would bump into this beautiful friend of mine who I've known for a while. And she came up to me and she's like, "Hey, Deb. How's it going? How's Vanessa"? Vanessa was my daughter. I told her what had happened and she had just known about all the other stuff that happened and my mom had just recently died. And funny thing, she looked at me, and mind you she knew me. She looked at me and she went, "Girl, you need Jesus".
Sid Roth: What's a nice Jewish girl need? Jesus. What's this?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: And I looked at her and my defenses went up. I was like, "Girl, I'm Jewish".
Sid Roth: I can picture that. Can you picture that?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: I'm like, "I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," and she said, "Ooh. And you're an arrogant Jew too". And I'm like, "What do you mean by that"? and she said, "Well, we believe and worship in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob too". Well, that caught me by surprise.
Sid Roth: I'm sure.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: I was like, "My dad kind of referred to Jesus as JC, the Gentile God".
Sid Roth: Yeah, my father would not say Jesus either. My father would say, "That man".
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: That man. Yeah. And so my dad would... I mean, because of my mom, he had to have some sort of sensitivity, but she was okay. She understood who he meant when he'd say JC. But bottom line is she had invited me to go to church. Something started stirring inside and I kept thinking, "No, I can't go to church because if God is real after all I did, I'm going to walk in there and I think I'm going to go poof, just burn up". But I went home and things started spinning. My head was spinning. I'm looking around at my daughter's things.
Sid Roth: I'll tell you what. Hold that thought.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Yeah.
Sid Roth: Wait till you hear when God shows up. I mean, God shows up big in her life. Be right back.
Sid Roth: Wait until you hear what happened to this Jewish woman. Deborah, tell me about the vision that changed it all.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: One day, I was in my bedroom. I had just made the bed and I was feeling broken. I was thinking about my mother when just the most unbelievable thing happened. I was not sleeping, I was not dreaming. But there she was. Not only was she there, but she first started saying, with her little Puerto Rican accent who always called me "You". She never called me Deborah. She was like, "I got something to tell you". So she said, "I need to show you something".
Sid Roth: Was it a vision or was she really there?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Boy, it felt like she was really there.
Sid Roth: Okay.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: But we know that it was a vision.
Sid Roth: Right.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: There was no way.
Sid Roth: But it was real.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: But she was really there. And we are talking and she's explaining to me and about ready to show me that she saw me frantically trying to save her, giving her CPR, everything. And she explained that she came out of her body looking down at me, that she said, "Now look," and all of a sudden there was this light and I saw this light leading up to a tunnel. And she said, "And there, I suddenly heard a voice: Brian". Now I had a 12-year-old brother that drowned so our family is used to tragedy. He drowned when I was 13. But there he was calling her up and she thought, "Okay. Oh, there's Brian. I'm going to go," and then she said, "No". She looked at me and she felt sorry for me so she was going to come back. But then she heard the other voice and she said, "Now I want you to see what happened". So I'm looking up and there is my daughter. Not in a wheelchair, but she's roller-skating.
Sid Roth: The one with cerebral palsy.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Yes. Out of her wheelchair, roller-skating. "Look, Mama. Look. Jesus made me whole". And she looked over at me. She said, "I want you to know I looked over at you and I looked over at your dad and I knew you were going to be okay. You want to know why"? "Why"? She said, "Because you're going to meet Jesus. You are going to meet JC as you all call him". I'm like, "What"? I said, "Mom, are you telling me JC is real"? She said, "Oh, yes. And I never lied to you". Actually, she said, "I never lied to you", but I believed her because she never lied. My mother would never lie. And she said, "So I'm going to go and I know you're going to take care of your dad, but you're going to meet him. You just wait and see. And not only is he real, but he sings really good and he's got a great sense of humor," and I was stunned. Stunned.
Sid Roth: Yeah, we Jews think of awe and majesty, not a God with a great sense of humor.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: He definitely has if I'm sitting here today doing this after... And she told me everything was going to be okay. So it was time for her to go. I asked her to please let me just look at her one more time so I never forgot what she looked like. She said, "You're not going to forget". I ran out of the room and called my husband, and I'm like, "Vince, you're not going to believe what just happened". Then I said, "That's it. I have to call my dad".
Sid Roth: How did he take the good news?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Well, I called my father and he also knew that I was so serious, and that's when he confessed. "I didn't know how to say this, but I've been having some dreams and visions too about your mother". He said, "I keep seeing her. She keeps running away, running upstairs, and I can't quite catch her". Well, I will tell you that that was a turning point in our life. God was calling. "Guess what? I love you and I'm going to get your attention". Sometimes, people come quietly. Other times, some of us come feisty, kicking, and screaming. That's me. I went to the church. I started listening to this incredible band and I started shaking uncontrollably. They slowed the music down and I looked up at the words and the beautiful melody. "I fix my eyes on you. I lay my burdens down". That was it. I was literally hysterical. Ms. Total in Control had absolutely no control at that moment. I can only say thank God it was a Pentecostal church so they didn't notice as much, but God had a message for me that day.
Sid Roth: What was that message?
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: There was this woman speaking. She had just lost her kids in a car accident. I'm looking at her and I could see the intense pain, but there was something else. I kept trying to pinpoint, "How could she have so much peace through that pain"? and she spoke about being reunited again with her kids. Her kids went to youth group. They believed in Heaven. I suddenly started thinking right back about my mom. "I want what she has".
Sid Roth: Bottom line, Deborah got what she had. Deborah's husband is a believer. Deborah's daughter is a believer. Deborah's father accepted the Lord before he went to Heaven.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: That's right.
Sid Roth: What about you? Heaven is real.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: It's so real.
Sid Roth: If you want to be in Heaven, there's only one way. There's only one pass and you can't earn it. You have to believe that Jesus died in your place or believe you want to die for all the sins you've done.
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: That's right.
Sid Roth: Take your choice. Let Jesus do it, he's already done it 2,000 years ago, or you do it. You can't. Choose Jesus. Right now, your own words, "Jesus, I make you my Messiah and Lord. Amen".
Deborah Kline-Iantorno: Amen.