Changing the Last Digit Is Easy...

…But Leaving Behind the Old Year Can Be A Challenge

                At 96, research would categorize Mother, Bernyce Smith Gates, as resilient. Resiliency and flexibility have been defined as traits common to longevity. 2020 has challenged Mother.

Dad and Mother visiting with Billy 
at their 60th Anniversary in 2008 
photograph by Catherine Marie 
Photography

                It began with the shocking news of the death of William Wayne Webb of the Masham Community in Pawnee County on September 27 of 2020. Mother knew his parents, Joy (Brewer) and Bill Webb even before they were married. She had known Billy all his life. She recalled our excitement to attend his marriage to Janet Higgins.

                Then in October, the news came of Ann Dooley Brien’s serious illness with the horrible COVID-19 ultimately diagnosed. Ann, the youngest of Parris and Effie McKinney Dooley’s children, grew up as a Bender. Mother was ten years old and in school at Belford Grade School in the Bend with Brice, Junebie, Maggie, and Lynn Dooley when their baby sister, Ann, was born. (The photo of Ann is from her Belford Grade School group photo from 1949. Photo courtesy of James Whiles.)

Sharon's beautiful original RHS
senior portrait.

                In mid-November, we received word to pray for Sharon White Gibson, our nearest neighbor, who had COVID-19. Not only was Sharon, a life-long neighbor, but she had been Dad’s faithful RN while he was under home health care for the two years following his first stroke. He could always call her name. They could visit about the “old days” in the Bend. What a blow to learn of Sharon’s death the Sunday following Thanksgiving. Immediately, we thought of her boys sorrowing along with the rest of her family.

Even though Amber was a
grafted-in Bender, she had
those character traits that
made her fit in perfectly.

                We had only known briefly of Amber’s (Hightower) illness until we received word of her death. On the first Monday of December, how shocked we were to learn she was gone. She loved her family, her neighbors, and her friends. Amber loved to do for others, much like her mother, Jean Stoneman Fuller. Once again, Mother had such concern for Joe, her husband, their children, grandchildren, and the rest of the family as they trudged “through the valley of the shadow of death” (Amber's pretty photo can be accessed at www.hunsakerwootenfuneralhome.com)

Vickie, Ronnie, and Marian Gail Rice with my dad, 
Edmund Gates, Jr. - taken in  the spring of 1950.

              Just before Christmas, we received the news that Ronnie Rice had tested positive for the dreaded virus. Even though the prognosis was dire, Mother encouraged fervent prayer for his healing. Then on December 23, Rick Rice informed us of Ronnie’s death. As an only child, Mother was closer to her “Rice” cousins. She and her family celebrated holidays with them. She remembered the joy over Ronnie’s birth. Mother also recalled Ronnie’s fall from a horse that precipitated his head injury. My maternal grandparents, Calvin and Gladys Smith, accompanied Elmer and Ruby, his parents, as he was transported to St. Anthony’s Hospital in Oklahoma City. Ronnie was in a coma for 14 days. He was hospitalized for over a month. Grandma, as a trained nurse always believed a patient should not be left alone, so she stayed during his entire hospitalization. His father’s youngest sister, Dean Rice (Littlestar), stayed with Grandma also. With this backdrop, Mother said consistently during Ronnie’s battle with the Corona Virus, “Ronnie was injured so badly. He had come through so much.” (Both of the school pictures of Ronnie were among several that my grandma had in the photograph collection.)

Ronald Nathan Rice taken
on December 11, 1957

With these recent deaths of so many with ties to Mother, “turning the page” becomes difficult. The only commonality that makes these deaths bearable is each of these had made a profession of faith in Jesus. Another word for “profession” is an “affidavit.” They were staking their lives in this world and the next on the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself up for us. (Ephesians 5:2).

                As I draw this bittersweet posting to a close, I find myself turning to the scripture in 2 Peter 1:10. I like the down-to-earth way The Message presented it. It says:

So, friends, confirm God’s invitation to you, His choice of you. Don’t put it off; do it now. Do this, and you’ll have your life on a firm footing, the streets paved and the way wide open into the eternal kingdom of our Master and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Peter wrote this to his friends who may have been “riding the fence” about a relationship with Jesus or one who said “I’m doing the best I can. Isn’t that enough?”

Mother spoke after each death, “This virus is an attack on us all.” She lamented living through the Great Depression and then World War II only to have a direct assault on us from a pandemic. Many of us look to the day we can receive a vaccine for it. Yet none of us can be inoculated against death, but Jesus promised in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in Me, though he die, he shall live.” May we all follow Peter’s advice and have that profession or affidavit that guarantees we are one of His and will live in His eternal kingdom.