My Mother's Death

As my mother aged and became more infirmed from her rheumatoid arthritis, I certainly knew that she could not live forever. When she died on February 2, 2007, I was, however, quite surprised by the negative effects her death had on my life’s dreams and my sense of purpose. As my favorite songwriter, Jackson Browne, once wrote, “When you (my mother) went away…I dropped my life and couldn’t find the pieces.”
For most of my life, I have been a goal-oriented person, but when my mother died, I seemed to lose my focus on long-term goals. The road before me looked unfamiliar and unclear, and, as a person loses his/her way when not following a map, I felt that I was driving down the highway with no clear direction. My goals faded in the distance as I just tried to merely survive from one day to another.
My mother and I shared a positive attitude concerning life, but her death left me with an unfamiliar feeling of hopelessness. Even though the last words my mother said to me were, “I’ll be better tomorrow,” I lost all purpose and belief that things would and could get better. I lived in a world of darkness and struggled to find the light. I sensed that this would pass, but this lack of optimism that I experienced felt alien and scary; I couldn’t seem to muster up the faith to believe that my life would turn out alright now that my mother was gone.
Because my mother was my biggest fan, I also experienced a lack of love and support after she died. Always my greatest cheerleader, I felt there was no one who wanted to hear my dreams or celebrate my achievements like she did. In my mother’s world, her ‘Jan’ made her so proud. She constantly praised me for my ability to inspire students, my writing talent, and my positive and friendly personality. Being a respected critic and an uplifting supporter was a role that my mother provided unconditionally, a role that no one else in my life so thoroughly provides.
As I write this, I feel that my mother’s death left me with a sense of loneliness and isolation. Her death resulted in a lack of hope, a life without my trusted supporter, and a road without clear destinations; however, I inherited my mother’s spirit, courage, and faith, and I believe that with each day, I gain back my sense of self and purpose. Even though the pieces of my life will never quite fit the same again, I am gluing them back together and becoming whole once more.

Wearing red, white, and blue

Today is November 5th, 2008, and I have on my red, white, and blue. I even tried to find my flag pin because today I feel hopeful about my nation. Today, for the first time in quite a while, I feel optimistic and patriotic. I have hope.
Obama is not a savior; he is just a man. Singlehandedly, he will not be able to do all of the things he proposes, at least I hope not. A vote for Obama wasn’t a vote for everything he believes, stands for, and wants to do for this country and this world. In fact, there are some areas where Obama and I disagree, and I am still glad that our government is one with checks and balances.
What I do believe that may end with this election is the judging of others according to one moral compass. I believe that we have seen enough of the Pharasies preaching on the street corners, quite mean-spiritedly I might add. I have tried to observe through my own personal spiritual lens, and when I have done that, I have not seen the actions of my Christ nor the behaviors of his followers, the Christians.
I have seen innocent people die in a war that was a lie. I have seen forgiveness for inappropriate and immoral behaviors in the market place in the name of greed. I have seen people preaching on the street corners instead of praying in the closets to a personal God. And none of it has matched the words of Christ that I read in my Bible of forgiveness, inclusion, acceptance, tolerance, and love. It does not match my Christ who rebelled against judging, revenge, despising, hating, and exclusion.
So, no, Obama is not going to make everything okay, but in my heart of hearts, I believe this could be a start. May we turn to the New Testament this time and read anew the words of Christ in a changing world. It’s time to renew a right spirit.

Wearing Love

Wearing Love
Read Romans 13: 1-14
“But put on the Lord Jesus Christ…”
-Romans 13:14(NRSV)

The home movie flickers in the darkness; the familiar ‘click, click’ of the machine projects images of times long past and loved ones long gone. A girl of six, curls shining in the lights of Christmas, strokes the silky-soft fur of a cape, gracefully draped over the young shoulders of a woman who shares the same curls and same brown eyes of the child. The child snuggles her face into the deep richness of the coat and throws her arms around her mother in a show of pure love and joy only children seem to possess. Both smile at the camera.

The movie ends, and I squint in the brightness of the light. The same cape hangs on the door frame. I take it carefully off the rack, slip it over my own shoulders, and breathe in the familiar smell of my mother. In the mirror I see her smiling back at me. I wear her love.

Saint Paul reminds us that we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Daily I put on Christ the same way that I put on this coat. I wear the warmth of His protection. I feel blanketed in His grace. I am blessed by this gift of Jesus Christ from a loving Father and a dear mother.

Piney Grove Freewill Baptish Church

The dew is still fresh on the roses carefully placed on the altar by Aunt Pearl as the sun comes up very early on a Sunday morning. The church sparkles from the furniture polish rubbed on the wood floors and the pews the day before. It’s the third Sunday of the month, when Preacher Ferrell once again preaches at Piney Grove Freewill Baptist.
Barnes and Stancils, Hydes and Cockrells stand to sing the opening hymn that Aunt Alma has chosen to play on the upright piano, and as all sing of a garden where they can pray, my grandmother, ‘Aunt’ Amy, collects a twenty-five cent per family donation for the preacher’s pay, recording it all carefully with a stub of a pencil in a dog-eared notebook. Preacher Ferrell is a grower of tobacco during the week and a harvester of souls on Sunday; the meager amount of money and an abundant Sunday dinner his pay for delivering the Sunday preaching. My Great Grandfather Stancil leads the group in an opening prayer and Sunday school cards of Bible characters are used as fans as the congregation settles down for the usual hell fire and brimstone sermon.
Little Betty Van can hardly sit still for such a long time. Smelling the fried chicken and the biscuits has her tummy rumbling; the sound of creek and the buzzing of the yellow jackets down where the huge black Bullis grapes and thick-skinned Scuppernong grapes are ripening in the hot sun distracts her. Sister is sitting in her prim way, never squirmy like Betty, puffed up all proud like ole man Price’s red rooster because she made the banana pudding. Their mother, Amy, looks over at each briefly, inspecting hair and nails. They each have on their best Sunday dress.
Betty Van gets to pick the last song and she chooses, to no one’s surprise, Amazing Grace, singing loudly about a ‘wretch like-a me’. She and Rene leave the church to gather down by the creek bed until the table is spread. ‘Don’t get your Sunday dresses dirty, girls” their mother warns.
Lorene desperately wants the chicken breast, but she quietly watches as the adults at the big table pass the platter, the familiar platter of yellow jonquils with a pink border, lined with brown paper to catch the grease. No matter how many times she counts it out or how hard she prays, she knows the back, neck and wings will most likely be the choices when the huge plate finally gets to the kid’s table. Preacher Ferrell always gets the biggest pieces; Lorene guesses its because he is the best blesser of the food. She can’t help it, she knows it is a sin, but Lord knows he doesn’t need it, his big belly hanging over his black pants.
After the feast of potato salad, fresh cut cucumbers in vinegar and sugar, mashed potatoes, biscuits with molasses, and tea so sweet it hurts your teeth, Lorene removes the sweating dinner plate off of her big yellow bowl of banana pudding with a flourish. Everyone digs in. Lorene’s father catches her eye with a slight grin. “What do you call this, Lorene?” “It’s banana pudding and I made it myself”, Lorene says. “Well, there’s just one thing I want to know—where’s the bananas?” Lorene is horrified. She has forgotten the bananas.
Everyone agrees that banana-less pudding is still some of the best they’ve ever put in their mouth as the women cover up the leftovers. The men wander over to the tobacco barn for a smoke, and the kids begin to collect rocks to arm their fort.
I’ve heard this story so many times in my life that I feel as if I was at that church on those Sundays long ago myself. But I couldn’t have been because the old Piney Grove Freewill Baptist Church is now gone, weeds choke the grape vines and the Honeysuckle beside the creek where my mother played. People were poorer in the 1930’s and ‘40’s but pure hearts, strong hands, and proud families worshiped God in a joyful if humble spirit there in Piney Grove Freewill Church.
And I still prefer my banana pudding without bananas!

My Mother's Voice

Tears are so close to the surface at all times that I fear that they will run out of my eyes without any control on my part. As I slowly rise from my sleep, I hesitantly check my heart. Conjuring up the image of my mother, head bandaged and eyes closed in an eternal rest, I wait for the expected stab of pain. Quite horrendously, I want to feel that remembered pain. That hurt has become as familiar as my morning coffee. But with that pain, I suffer through another morning of a world without my mother. And once again, for possibly the 1000th time, I ask God how I will live without her, and I ask myself, "when did the pain become my mother"? As time heals the pain, will I also forget her voice? My greatest fear, which was the inevitable death of my infirmed mother, has been replaced with a new greatest fear; will I forget the important things? I would rather have the pain each morning and at unexpected times during my day than to forget her voice.
I am fearful of that, so fearful that once not long ago, I grabbed my cell phone without thinking, hit the number labeled 'mama' which I have not mustered up the courage to finally erase, and listened eagerly. For one brief and unthinking moment, I imagined that she would answer that lonely phone ringing in that deserted house in Rocky Mount. Then in a split-second, when reality set in, I imagined that at least her voice with its gracious message on her answering machine would restore that need to hear her voice. With anger that lived next to the pain and surfaced now like a force that almost knocked down, I heard my own voice and remembered that my mother had asked me to record the voice message for her phone since some had told her that her message was too personal. How could I be so foolish as to walk right into that blazing fire of pain and anger that needed to be extinguished so that I could go on with my life with hearing my own voice on that machine?
What did her original message say? At this moment, as I sit trying to untangle my feelings into straight lines of words and write them into some kind of understanding, there is a burning need to record her words. "I want to talk to you but not right now". So like my mother. She did want to talk to you but couldn't right now and was trying to be as kind as she could in saying it. I repeat these words aloud, trying to say them with the same sincere but southern coated inflection as she had once said them.
In all sincerity, one of my mother's favorite phrases, I cannot escape from the realization that once again I did not savor those moments when I was able to hear her voice. What was I thinking? I knew she was very sick, trying to live alone in constant arthritic pain and equally constantly falling and failing. Did I naively believe that she would always be there, to answer the phone with "Hi Pudding" and sit in that blue chair until I found time in my busyness of life to visit her and seek her company?
I don't learn. I don't stop and hear the sweetness of those voices around me, my family, and my friends. I blindly plow through the day, feigning busy because I am so smugly sure that those student voices, those TV voices, those automated voices, the ones I am attending to are the most important. And I know better. I've lived this anger at my careless and the pain of that since my mother died before.
Today who will I listen to with my undivided attention? Whose voice do I need to memorize? Whose stories do I need to record before the moment is swept away in the whirlwind of my life?

Lord, give me the patience I repeatedly seem to lack to listen without planning my next sentence or seeking an escape route. Lord, give me the wisdom to listen with understanding and love and abandonment of other voices whispering for my attention in my other ear. Lord, give me the ability to listen with discernment, to truly hear the voice and know the pain, the anger, the joy, the fear behind each word. And Lord, give me memory, to recall that voice, as unique and individual as a fingerprint, even after the mouth is forever silenced in death.

An Accidental Leader

My mother, a natural leader, attended Girl’s State, held the position of Secretary of her high school, marched with the band as lead majorette, and served as Treasurer of the National Honor Society. Even though her family stretched to make ends meet, her parents provided her one year of business classes at an all-girl college. Good with numbers and ready with a smile, she would have been an asset to any business, but my mother chose to be a mother. This wasn’t a sacrifice for her; it was her dream to be a mother.
At the too-young age of 36, my mother developed rheumatoid arthritis. Doctors as far away as Atlanta and at prestigious hospitals like Duke Medical Center told her she had the worst case they had ever seen, and that she would be in a wheel chair in just a few years. It is a testament to my mother’s courage and strong will that she still walked at her death at 75.
Rheumatoid arthritis robbed my mother of her health but also her confidence. She still worked tirelessly as a mother and wife, our house was spotless and she always had hot meals on the table, and she also continued to do her church and civic activities. But her personality changed and her belief in herself diminished with each year she lived with this debilitating disease.
During the passing years, my father was asked to do more for my mother, helping her dress, getting out of the bathtub, and lifting the frying pan, as well as fashioning some ingenious gadgets to help her continue to live as independently as possible. On the 95th birth day of my mother’s father, in 1998, my father literally dropped dead from a heart attack. The question in everyone’s mind was how my mother would ever live without him, not only because of her grief and future loneliness, but of course for his assistance in the home. My sister and I both lived hours away with our own work and families.
Just as my mother fought to live with her affliction, she also fought to live in her home. Little by little she discovered ways to take care of herself as one by one other parts of her body fell victim to arthritis. Grief, however, made the arthritis worse, and I am certain that my mother cried herself to sleep many, many nights after my father died.
My mother did not give up on going to church on Sunday. Buttoning her blouse and putting on shoes, not to mention trying to comb her hair when she couldn’t raise her hands over her shoulders, proved a test every Sunday morning. Often times, she went without a zipper totally pulled up or with a hair pick in her hand and would get her sister to help finish her grooming right before church began.
The assistant pastor of the church met Mama at the door one Sunday and asked her if she would join a Grief Share group. I am not certain what my mother thought about this. I never knew her to join support groups, having had a bad experience with a group for arthritis sufferers, but I also knew that she trusted this man, this pastor, and she probably also knew she needed some help. The loneliness and sorrow was affecting her pain level. And hadn’t she prayed for God to help her? Maybe this was His answer.
Totally on faith, slightly unsure and not absolutely willing, my mother showed up at the first meeting. Afterwards, when we talked on the phone, she shared that many in the group were certainly suffering even more than she as some had attempted suicide or had to be on daily medication. She also shared that she really didn’t think she needed to be in this group and wasn’t sure if it would help her or not.
But God had other plans. By the second meeting, my mother had become the accidental leader of the group. With her special gift of encouragement and her willingness to listen, many in the group had naturally turned to her for strength and guidance. Many looked at my mother’s life, a life of severe and constant pain and potential lack of mobility and possible dependency, as a model; they saw that if she could make it, so could they. For the next year, my mother quite reluctantly but quite effectively led this group.
At my mother’s funeral, one of these Grief Share members tearfully told me about what my mother had meant to her during a time when she couldn’t see a way to live even another day. Now a beautiful, smiling young woman in a healthy marriage, she said that she knew that my mother’s gift of the spirit was her way of encouraging others even in the midst of her own grief and pain.
God calls us to assume leadership roles when we least expect it or feel ready. In the change and uncertainty of my mother’s life without my father, she was the person God chose to lead others living in grief and despair to hope and a better life.
I thank God that He gave my mother this opportunity. In caring for others, she re-discovered her own gift of leadership and regained the confidence to live alone and independently for eight years after my father’s death, still walking physically and spiritually with God, the Father. She put her trust in Him and was obedient to His call, and He, in turn, gave her what she needed, a purpose and a place of service to Him and others.

Known By Our Fruits

Reverend Bill Sweetser, Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, says this: “I wonder if Christians have lost our moral authority because we have lost our distinctiveness”. He goes on to say that Christians really don’t act differently than non-Christians in areas of divorce, premarital sex, spousal abuse, and bigotry.
Here’s the deal. Christians are speaking out against gay marriage while clearly divorcing as much as others in society; Jesus and Paul condemned both. We are voicing our outrage at abortion while not supporting the very thing that would help end it, sex education, good parenting, and birth control information; ‘just say no’ isn’t working with Christians either. We preach loving our neighbor but only if that neighbor looks and acts like us; we sure don’t want to live near a black person. We say we ‘turn the other cheek’ but wage war, killing many innocent women and children.
Let us act like Christians, remembering and living the words of Christ. Our trees are known by our fruits. I close with Rev Sweetser’s words: “If we sound and act like everyone else in our culture, how will people know we are Christians and why would they want to follow Jesus?”