Mother's Day Forty Years Ago

 This manuscript was written and submitted several years ago. It seemed appropriate to publish an edited version as a blog posting this Mother's Day since it occurred on Mother's Day forty years ago (That year Mother's Day fell on May 8).  May we realize what great blessings we have received from God as He has given loving, devoted women to us as mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers.

The Glow at Midnight

            Some days can seem unbearably long—draining all energy and emotion. A day like that occurred for our family in 1983 on Mother’s Day. That day was the culmination of a long, difficult journey that began in early October of the previous year. But it hadn’t always been that way.

Gladys Vivian Rainey Smith, my maternal grandma, and Bernyce Smith Gates,
my mother, on Mother's Day, 1973. Notice one of Grandma's rose bushes.
Grandma followed the tradition to wear a white flower to honor her deceased
mother, and Mother wore a red corsage to honor her living mother. I don't recall
if Angie or I took the picture. Let's just say we were learning.

             My sister and I grew up in the same house with our parents and maternal grandparents. We worked together on our farm growing a garden, caring for a herd of cattle, and raising sometimes as many as five hundred laying hens from tiny chicks. Grandma was a hard-worker and frequently drafted us as her unenthusiastic assistants. 

Times of fun and laughter punctuated our work-filled summers. After finishing a farm task such as canning fifty quarts of green beans (after picking and breaking them that same day), Grandpa would pack up the cane poles and tackle box in the bed of one of the farm trucks. Angie and I hopped into the back of the pickup and bumped off to one of the three ponds on our farm. As the sun began to sink below the western horizon, we delighted in roasting wieners on old tree branches that Grandpa had whittled to a point with his pocketknife. Those sticks would pierce and hold the wieners or marshmallows over the fire he and Dad built. My sister and I would have not been happier if we had been taken on a summer-long European holiday than those fishing excursions.

            But in 1982, one October morning after breakfast, my sister and my mother heard a terribly frightening thud as Grandma collapsed onto the floor of the hall after suffering a major stroke.  After several days in the hospital, she was transferred to a rehabilitation facility.  Because rehab services, such as physical therapy, were limited at that time, my mother and sister were told after Grandma’s thirty-day stay, “Just take her home and make her comfortable.”

My sister chose to put her career plans on hold and actively assisted my mother with Grandma’s therapy. She, along with Mother, had a crash course in caring for a patient with paralysis on one side. My father helped in the evenings when he came in from his carpentry job.  Our family  received invaluable daily support from one of our closest neighbors, Charlotte Hutchens, who was a home health nurse.

 In early May of the following year, Grandma’s kidneys began to fail. Her last day was Mother’s Day. My father and I led the music worship at our small rural church as song leader and pianist that morning. Grandma lingered throughout the day even though she was unconscious. Later that evening, Grandma passed away.

 Our family was emotionally spent after over six months of care and daily seeing a woman with enormous talent, capability, intelligence, and fervor debilitated by the stroke. Even though at her death we grieved deeply, we still had a peace because of our belief in life after death. That peace found its basis in the fact that Grandma, at age thirty-one, following her father’s death, had sought forgiveness and made a life-altering commitment to follow Jesus the rest of her life trusting her eternal life to Him.

 Soon her body was moved to the local mortuary from our family home. Those who have had a loved one die after an extended illness can identify with the weariness and fatigue that comes following the passing of the loved one. My sister had been by Grandma’s side as her breathing pattern changed and death approached. She was exhausted physically and emotionally. By midnight, she decided to try to sleep in her bedroom that was adjacent to Grandma’s room where I was staying that night, too.

            Angie put a record on the turntable. As the record slowly spun on the spindle, a beautiful musical rendition of Psalm 23 by Keith Green filled the room. My sister turned out the light so we could try to relax and go to sleep although our hearts were heavy with grief.  Instantly out of the darkness, a vintage portrait of Jesus hanging on the wall to the left above the bed was glowing and illumining that portion of the room. Its brilliance startled my sister who was the first to see it. The antique frame holding an artist’s conception of Christ had originally belonged to my mother (See the photo of it to the left.). To Mother’s knowledge, the painting had never glowed so brightly before that night. Ironically, the painting never glowed so intensely again after the night of Grandma’s death.  Our tears changed from tears of grief to tears of peaceful gratitude, confident that we were not alone. (This link will connect to Keith Green's performance of The 23rd Psalm - - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-XIGanYS2s )

The warm glow emanating from the old sacred representation seemed to be a reminder that He was with us as our Shepherd, lovingly guiding us through this valley of the shadow of death.  He assured us that the glow in our hearts of His presence would never be diminished by the darkness of our situation.  From that night forward, these truths were indelibly written in our minds and on our hearts, knowing Grandma spent her first Mother’s Day in heaven with the Lord she loved where time is no more.