My Mama.....

My heart broke this morning, as I watched a Gentleman in our congregation struggle with his grief on this, All Saints Day(observed). He recently lost his wife, and her name was read today, along with all of the others of our number who went on to their reward in the past year - those who from their labors rest. Inevitably, my thoughts turned to my parents - gone too soon and for so long. It is only fitting on this day of remembrance, that I choose my Parents as my "Thankful Thing". I think it best, if I give each Parent their own day, so today.....I start with Mama, who has been gone from me for almost 2/3's of my life. My Mother was an amazing woman -a strong willed, outspoken woman ahead of her time - a broken woman. I came to my parents late in life - Mama was mortified to find herself expecting at 39 - old in that day and time. When I was just a few months old, my Mother was diagnosed with Breast cancer. After her mastectomy, she was told to go home and find someone to raise her baby - she was given just a few months to live. I can see how she must have been, like in a movie - so spirited and beautiful....so mutilated and terrified. But in her inimitable fashion, Mama did not lay down and die - rather she began the fight of her life. My Mother came from a long line of Baptist Ministers, was in fact, married to one...her faith suddenly became real to her - grew feet and muscle and backbone. She lived 6 months, 12months - delighting in proving her Doctors wrong. Over the next 18 years, she would be in remission only a few times - and then, for only a few months. All told she had 3 bouts of breast cancer, 2 mastectomies, lung cancer, twice; bone cancer - which crippled her when I was 15, and then - cruelest of all - stomach cancer which robbed her of her ability to eat anything other than red jello....to this day, I can not abide red jello.
   You would think with all of this suffering, the house I grew up in would have been a gloomy, depressing place to live. You would think that my Mothers body, which bore the marks of the surgeons wrath - which was grotesque in a way, would have been repulsive. You might think that we were a family so wounded and without hope that we were unable to function...but if  you were to think that, you would be so wrong. If my Mother received a bad report from the Doctor - if a new spot of cancer was found, or more surgery was needed,she would go home and turn off all of the lights. There would be no music, no TV, no talking. She sat in the dark drinking Buttermilk, and wallowing in pity, fear and doubt. She stared out the kitchen window, seeing the unseen - paralyzed with the reality of her life. The next morning, the lights would be on, the music would play, the laughter would flow, and Mama's smile would once again light up all of our lives. She got about the business of living, because she and her God had once again faced down the specter of death. The mastectomies left giant, gaunt hollows in my Mothers chest. These hollows cushioned my head, as if they had been carved out for just that purpose, and when she hugged me, I could get so much closer to her than my friends could get to their Mothers. Just like the Velveteen Rabbit, the beauty of my Mothers body came from how much she was loved. We went about the ordinary tasks of our days feeling blessed that we had been given another day together. Every night I was lulled to sleep by the sound of my Parents praying together - always the same prayer...."Most Gracious Heavenly Father, let me live to see my Kelley grown", "Let Dot live to raise our girl...." My Mother was a wonderful listener, a good wife and Mother, a treasured friend, an artist, president of the PTA, an encourager, a woman whose arms never tired of giving hugs and snuggling up in bed, a good cook, a virtuous woman and a terrible and very loud singer of hymns. My Mother was.......everything, and when she died, 3 months after I entered college, my world crumbled. Wounded, fragile, frightened - those words don't even begin to describe how I was in the months and years that followed.
   On Mothers Day, in my family, we had the same ritual each year. My Father would purchase a white orchid for my Mother to wear, as her Mother had passed away. My Mother would take her clippers to our beautiful red rose bush, and fashion a corsage for me, and a boutonniere for my Father, signifying that we had living Mothers. The year I was 13, my Mama was in desperate straights physically, and every movement she made was an effort borne of agony.  On this particular Saturday before Mothers Day,she sat with the red roses in front of her, slumped over the kitchen table....she heard me come in, and raised her head. She looked at me with a look of such love, that I can still feel it today and said - "I wish we had a pink rosebush, cause Mama's half dead!" The truth of the matter is, my Mother was never more alive than at that moment; bent, broken, mutilated and hurting - for she was a living testament to the grace and goodness of the Lord, to the power of walking fully in faith and hope. Thanks be to God, for the gift of my Mother.