Tribute

For 40+ years, this woman has been a part of my life...and this man (my husband, Jay) is the one who brought her into my life...it's his Mama, Lois.






Lois always treated me with respect and grace...even when I was a gangly seventeen year old girl, who didn't know anything.  Due to Lois's influence in her son's life...I came to know the Lord.  For years, Sundays meant going to church and then to Jay's parent's house for lunch.  Lois never knew who would show up.  She always had something started, and as the kids and grandkids came in, we would work together adding to the meal to have enough.  LOL!  It might be the most unusual assortment of foods, but it was always delicious and no one ever went away hungry. 

The things I remember are an odd assortment too:  How carefully she peeled potatoes, wasting nothing. Making biscuits or rolls in a little dusting of flour on the table, the dough clinging to her fingers.  Sometimes, she would tell me a certain way to do something in the kitchen, but rarely.  Always, thanking me for helping prepare or clean up.  And as little as she had, there were always extra things in her pantry, which amazed me as the mother of 6 young ones - I rarely had extras of anything in mine!

Lois never had a large or elaborate home.  She lost her home to a fire and spent the last years of life in a small, modest home.  Thanksgiving and Christmas there, meant finding a place to sit...with every inch of furniture and usually the floor as well being put to use.  Fun times full of talk and laughter.

As the years passed and her back began to be a constant source of pain...she would still get up and attempt to feed us whenever we came by.  That's what moms and grandmothers do...right?  She would lean on the stove for support, stirring some pot - or trying to open the oven (that had no handle anymore) to get out those biscuits or that pan of cornbread - I can still see her in my mind's eye - until we could convince her to sit and let us do it.

She raised 8 children all of whom have come to the Lord. There are preachers, teachers, carpenters, policemen, engineers...all kinds of professions among her children, grandchildren and great-granchildren, which are too numerous to tell. She cared for and supported her husband as long as he lived. She was an obedient and loving daughter. She had an excellent name in her church and community.

She was a simple woman who trusted the Lord.  My husband has reminisced so many times, telling me how she was the last one to bed at night when he was growing up...trying to get everything done for that day and ready for the next; the things she did when times were hard to make their lives special (making chocolate Easter eggs).  She worked in the fields...grew a garden...put up 100 quarts of every fruit and vegetable she could get in order to feed her large family.  My daughter, Jill, sat with her yesterday holding her hand and talking softly to her.  Jill said, "Mama, they were not the hands of a woman who had a manicure and pedicure every week.  They were the hands of someone who has worked very hard."

No more.  Last night, Lois's labor ended and she was carried by the angels to be with Jesus. Hallelujah! And while we are teary...she is rejoicing...back straight...free of pain...hands smooth and soft and new.  She joined her husband, her dad and mom and her brother who were waiting there.  And one day, we will join her there too.