When my mom died at 99.5 in March 2019, I put quite a few things away in plastic crates to address later. Couldn’t face all of it. I took thousands of slides to my sister. She was not thrilled. I took a couple boxes of every card and letter to my niece because she sent more of them to mom than anyone else. (“No good deed goes unpunished,” as a wicked witch once said.) Six years later, I found one of the boxes in our woodworking shop.
You may ask, “Why there?” I have no idea.
My husband and I were ‘piddling’ with small efforts to create order in the shop. I know well the story of Pandora but of course, I opened the box. Waves of memories flooded over me as I found the signature book for the visitation register used at my father’s death in 1996. Other artifacts followed. But the clincher was notes my mom wrote to my dad after he had died. She was explaining the events surrounding his sudden illness March 2 and his death on Easter Sunday morning, April 7. She’d journaled off and on from then till the time she explored moving near one of her children. Each of us four had a turn at making offers. Never thought she’d choose me.
My husband and I were the lucky ones. I mean that. I think she really chose him more than me. We’d thought of building in the town where I was teaching and offered to have her involved. A month later, she said, “I’d like to do that.” We wasted no time in setting up appointments to visit builders’ models. We agreed on one and convinced the builder to change the plans to include a three-car garage so the room above it could be a second master suite and a smaller upstairs bedroom could be a second master bathroom. In this way, mom could have her own space with her sitting room, bedroom and master bath and be completely on the main floor and we would take the upper master. We arranged the laundry room to have a mini-kitchen and large stacked washer and dryer beside her rooms. It was ideal. We had the wonderful privilege of enjoying her for fourteen years.
At the burial site, I remember saying that I was so proud of her courage to move a whole state away when she had lived in Virginia since 1951. She was 85 and a half and still driving and everything would be new. New doctor, church, neighborhood, shopping, post office, HAIRDRESSER. All those normal every day or weekly conveniences we take for granted. She did a remarkable job adjusting and only scared us breathless a few times. A few fires on the stove, in the toaster oven, in the microwave. A few car scrapes and one major car dive into our massive subdivision retainer pond while WE were in Canada. This last event launched her as a celebrity, even on TV. She’d totaled her car, rescue took her to the hospital, she was okay and released, but insisted my brother drive an hour and a half to take her to the hairdresser the next morning before her TV interview. Bless her! She gave the Lord all the credit for saving her life. And she looked good.
The memories generated by that box in the shop led me to recall what else I had said at her burial. “I never really new my mom very well until she lived with us.” And I realized how little I knew her as an individual when I finally read some of her writings. I knew her as my mom, my dad’s wife, and a teacher. But when we shared the living of fourteen years as adults, I began to know her heart. She’d kept a diary from 1937 to 1940. She was a Depression survivor and consequently, very frugal. She could be tactless and blunt, but not too often. And she never wanted to be hurtful. She was funny, clever, eager to read and learn. She loved small treasures and dogs and cats But in her writings, I found more. She possessed a childlike innocence and evidence of caring and gratitude that rings through the descriptions of what had to be a difficult childhood and early marriage. Both love and longing wove through those letters written to her sweet husband of fifty-five years. She’d lived without him for twenty- three and in her last few days, she often said she saw him or talked to him. This led me to understand – the veil between here and hereafter becomes very thin.
Knowing mom better, I became more aware of the precious gift of older women. About ten years ago, I acquired the role of teaching the circle at our church many of our senior women attended. They blew me away. I felt like a novice in my early sixties. I was a little intimidated by the collective Bible knowledge and dedicated church work represented in this group. The fun part is the refreshing candor and life experience shared. I often say I probably learn more than I teach. But the kicker is the relationships. I am beginning to accept the reality of my greater cloud of witnesses in heaven.
You see, I’ve lost eighteen friends from this circle across these years… but our circle keeps receiving new members. Most of us are in our 70’s with a couple of outliers both ways. But every one of them is a gift and a reminder of my mother’s sweet spirit. I would have NEVER thought I would settle in to teaching my elders or the youngest kids. But they are a lot alike. Wide open.
NEVER say never. God will prove you wrong. He will overwhelm you with blessings you would have missed on your own.
Listen to them. The children and those with decades of experience. God will change you. He will grow you. And you will find great joy.
Mother Factors 