Coming and Going

Coming and Going

"Life is about coming and going". That is what my cousin Bill said at his mother's funeral yesterday.  I wrote that down (actually I typed it into notes on my iPhone).

My Aunt Bertie was my mother's sister. She was 86. She had raised five children and worked and volunteered at a variety of things. She and Uncle Ken had been married for 69 years. She had done a lot of coming and going. But she had spent the last twelve years in a nursing home. Alzheimer's had ended her coming and going. But that did not keep her husband Ken from coming and going to her. Twelve years of coming nearly every day to the nursing home to see his wife. Twelve years of going back home to an empty house. Nor did it keep her children from coming to and fro to visit. Coming to make sure she was taken care of and then leaving to take care of the other responsibilities in their lives. I am sure there were times that the coming and going was difficult and probably a few times they asked why. But some things you just do because it is the right thing to do. You come and you go because that is what life is about.

So yesterday we gathered for her funeral. To be honest I argued with myself a little about whether I should go or not. I had not seen her in a long time and I did not know my cousins very well. It would be a long trip and would my going really be that helpful? But her children had come to both of my parent's funerals and some of them had even made the trip to Virginia when my niece died. I had been honored by the care and concern demonstrated in their coming and going. So I decided that I wanted to go and I determined that I should. Though I had not yet heard my cousin Bill say it, I guess something whispered in my ear that life is about coming and going.

So I went. Brock who is always up for a trip came with me to keep me company. We shook some hands and hugged some necks and caught up on a few people. We shared a few memories and sang some of my Aunt Bertie's favorite hymns. We celebrated the life she had lived and we rejoiced in the heaven she now enjoyed. Then we left.

I am so glad that I came. There are some things we just need to stop and go do, because life is about coming and going.  And you know sometimes we get so busy with the comings and goings of life that we forget that life is about coming and going.

My Mother's Eulogy

Lois Cloyd

1934-2016

 

Intro. When I was a boy my Mama would make fudge. I would watch and as she poured the hot fudge from the kettle into the dish.  I would say “I get to lick the spoon”. Trouble was there was usually a brother or sister around who also wanted to lick the spoon. But that was not a real problem. Mother would just get a second spoon and give each of us a spoon of the remains from the kettle. In licking that spoon we got a foretaste of the fudge that we would get to eat after it set up. 

I have spent my life walking in the midst of the reality of things on earth and the foretaste of the glory divine that is to come. I grew up in church. Mother took me to church as a two week old babe in arms. I grew up singing gospel songs. I went to Sunday School. I heard about salvation. I heard about heaven and I knew you had to be saved to get heaven. I heard the Bible truths about what was right and what was wrong and how that we were supposed to live in the way that was right. I grew up hearing about missions and prayer and stewardship. I was told that I needed to listen to God and be obedient to whatever call God placed upon my life. I knew all of that because that is what my Mama and Daddy taught me.
 

I knew that whatever a person had here on earth was temporary. And whatever was laid up for us in heaven was permanent. My Mama believed that and indeed that is what the Bible teaches.

 

“For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a house not made with hands, an eternal dwelling in the heavens” II Cor. 5:1

 

So while I have lived my life trying to accomplish and experience a lot of things here on earth and trying to get my share of earthly possessions, I have done so with the acknowledgement that none of those things would last forever. That might be a discouraging thought were it not for the foretaste I have been given of things above.

That is the way my Mama lived. That is the way my Mama taught me to live.

My Mother was an ambitious soul. She worked hard to fulfill the ambitions of her soul.
  

Mother did not grow up with much. She did not have wealth or stature or a wide experience of places and things. But she wanted those things and she worked hard to acquire them.

She desired an education. With a stroke of providence she got the opportunity. After high school she was working as a waitress at the little restaurant in the corner of a drug store in London. As the fall was approaching a school principle came into the store and told my mother that another student was getting married and was going to forfeit her scholarship to Sue Bennett College and asked mother if she wanted it. Two years later she graduated and took a teaching job in a one room country school with 52 kids in 8 grades.

The job did not pay much but it was more than she had ever made and with a little money in the bank she started buying things. She was still living with my grandparents so she bought them a new sofa. They had never had a phone. She had one put in. When Christmas came she proudly bought a present for every member of the family right down to the youngest niece and nephew.
 

She liked teaching but she wanted a family. Then she met my dad. Mother said the first time she ever met Dad he was driving by on a Farmall H tractor. She said he waved at her. One day he drove by on the tractor, saw her, stopped, turned the tractor off, and right there, sitting on the tractor seat asked her for a date. That is the way my Mama tells the story. If truth be known she flagged him down.

Dad always said mother amended the details of that story. But however much the details of that story may have been amended the fact is that 5 months later they were married. By the time they had been married 5 years and 2 months four children had been born. And mother had what she wanted. Throughout all of her life what she was more proud of than anything else on earth were her four children.

As bad as the Alzheimer’s eventually decimated her mind and body there was something in her soul that fought hard to hold on to a remnant of that pride. About three weeks after dad died I drove to Blacksburg to see her. I found her that day in a state of chatter. I spoke to her and though I knew I would not be successful I tried to interact with her. But she stared blankly ahead oblivious to my presence and chattered away.


So I sat down beside her and for about an hour I just listened. Most of what she said made no sense but every now and then she would string 6 or 8 words together in a sentence. As I listened it occurred to me that there was something like a reel to reel tape playing her mind of events that occurred 50 plus years ago. In her demented state she was interacting with those events. I listened closely and discovered that I was on the reel to reel tape that she was interacting with. She would say “You know I have these two kids”. I would have been one of those two kids and that would have dated the event around 54 or 55 years ago. Once a brief smile came across her face as she said to one of those kids “Look at you, you are so cute” (I am quite certain she was probably referring to me). I realized something about my mother that day that I guess I already knew – The melody of her life was her children. That day she gave me a gift of listening as she recited the melody. Alzheimer’s had robbed her mind of the verses her life had written, but she was maintaining a feeble grasp on the melody.

Yes, mother was an ambitious soul. She wanted to have something. She wanted to be somebody. She wanted to contribute something to the world. She wanted to be known for the contribution she made. Mother never wanted to be just ordinary. She did not want her children to settle for the ordinary. She determined to inspire us to live beyond the ordinary.
 

 Mother wanted to be a teacher. But four children in four years had interrupted that dream. But at the age of 32 she enrolled in classes at the University of KY to complete her teaching degree. This meant she had to drive from Georgetown to Lexington each day to attend class. So Dad bought mother an old brown two-tone Plymouth. It was a big tank of a car. It had a rectangular steering wheel and push button gear shift. Every Sunday he would put a few bucks worth of gas in it and mother would drive it to class. Every day she would pack her lunch and put a dime in her pocket and when classes were over for the day she would take that dime and buy herself a coke as a reward for the days’ work. Two years later she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Education from the University of KY.

Mother recognized a teachable moment and was not about to waste it. She never wanted us to miss school for anything. But that day she was not going to allow school to get in the way of our education. She took us out of school dressed us up in our best Sunday - go to meeting clothes. I had on a white sport coat and a black tie. All that was missing was a pink carnation. Dad took all four us, 5^th grade, 4^th grade, 3^rd grade, and 1^st grade to mother’s graduation in memorial coliseum. We sat high up in the balcony through a long graduation and watched my mother receive her degree. I never saw my dad more proud or more patient than he was that day. My mother and Dad had both paid a heavy price for that accomplishment. Afterwards we stood in the parking lot and mother still wearing her cap and gown gathered her four children around her and Dad took the Brownie Hawkeye camera and took a picture.

My Mama knew exactly what she was doing that day. She was using that moment to inspire her children to be more than ordinary. She was inspiring us to be somebody and to make a contribution to the world.


Mother always told us to get an education. She said that was something that no one could take away from us. She was wrong about that. Alzheimer’s can take away your education. Education is just as temporary as anything else on this earth. The best we can do is leave a legacy and build a foundation that others can build upon. I think my mother determined was through the children that she bore and reared and the students who were entrusted to her.


Mother lived in a lot of houses. Her home was important to her. Some of the houses she lived in were pretty simple but she was proud of them. The first house I remember living in was the Helvetia School house on Chaney Ridge Road in Laurel County KY. Dad and mother bought the old School house and converted it into a home. They got the first floor finished and ran out of money. Later dad finished two rooms upstairs. But they never did get enough money to remodel the outside. Mother was proud of that house but always felt like she had to apologize about the outside of it. She would say: “The outside does not look to good but “It is fixed up nice inside”.

We moved to Georgetown and left that house and some of our belongings in it and about a year later it burned down to the ground. And mother locked herself in the bedroom and cried. One of her dreams was destroyed that day. But there would be other houses. Some were fixer uppers and some were modern and the last one was new. When she moved from that place she left against her will. She did not want to go and she made sure we knew of her displeasure. I don’t blame her for being upset. I didn’t like it either. But the Alzheimer’s was already doing its dirty work in her mind and she needed help. She went to another house but she was never was at home again.
 

 The Apostle gives us a picture that you and I are far too familiar with. He says “Indeed we groan in this body, desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven, since we are clothed, we will not be found naked. Indeed, we groan while we are in this tent, burdened as we are, because we do not want to be unclothed but clothed, so that mortality may be swallowed up by life. (II Cor. 5:2-4 – HCSB)

 I have watched my mother do a lot of groaning as everything she worked to acquire here on this earth was slowly taken away. Her houses gone. Her education vanished. Her dignity and glory vaporized. Her body reduced to a shell.
 

 If that is all there is then life is a cruel joke.
 

 But my Mama lived in this world but in faith she longed for the world beyond. She dwelt here. But she lived for God. Her hope was in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus the Spirit of God had given her a foretaste of glory divine in the world to come.

Everything on this earth is temporary and everything in heaven is permanent. Paul said “For we know that if our temporary, earthly dwelling is destroyed, we have a house not made with hands, an eternal dwelling in the heavens” II Cor. 5:1

I am a little sad today. But forgive me if my tears are few. Because seeing what I have seen and knowing what I know I don’t want to cry but I want to shout “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, what a savior”.

 If mother were here she would try to help us put this day in perspective. And I know just how she would do it. She would write us a poem. But since she cannot write a poem I decided to write one for her. I tried to wrap my mind around her life. I tried to understand who she was and who she became and who she is now. I loaned her my mind and my pen. Here is the perspective that I think she might convey to us today.

 

 

            I Can Remember

         By C. Brent Cloyd

 

Once I could recall every birthday

To places I had been I knew the way

From memory I could sing gospel songs

I knew each verse, not a word would be wrong

 

I taught children to say the alphabet

A basic in life they must not forget

I helped them learn to add and to subtract

To multiply, divide, and be exact

 

I could organize a holiday meal

Entertain family and friends with zeal

Clean house, set the table, and decorate

Cook all the fixins and never be late

 

But then I would forget and be confused

From activities I myself excused

Alzheimer’s stole my dignity and glory

My life began a different story

 

My soul filled with pain, denial, and tears

As the disease tarnished my golden years

My heart beat but I could not remember

Nothing was left but a dying ember

 

You visited me but I never knew

My moments of understanding were few

The world became small, I rarely cracked a smile

Lonely, I lingered, through this earthly trial

 

Then God’s angel came in death and in love

We made the trip to the promised place above

I met Jesus, I worshipped and adored

He gave me a house I could not afford

 

I’ve met the neighbors, I know them by name

Seen old friends, now some new ones I can claim

I’ve not been here long but it feels like home

I know where I am, not afraid to roam

 

So don’t cry for me, but laugh and rejoice

I am singing hymns with new mind and voice

Of the heavenly choir I’m a member

And every song I can remember

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It Won't Be Very Long

My Grandfather Morgan Williams was a hymn writer. He had some 46 songs published. The most popular one was entitled “It Won’t be Very Long”. It gained some notoriety in Stamps Baxter singing circles. It can be found in a few of the old hymnals one of them being “Heavenly Highway Hymns”.
But I know it because my mother sang it from memory all the time when I was growing up. She was quite proud of the hymn and of her Dad who wrote it.

 I am remembering it tonight as my mother’...s life appears to be slipping away in a nursing home in Blacksburg, Virginia. Alzheimer’s has depleted her to an earthly shell. But awaiting her is a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

I am singing my Grandfather’s old hymn tonight. And I think I am hoping that maybe there is a recording somewhere in a hidden corner of my mother’s mind that is playing this hymn and giving her comfort.


It won't be very long till this short life shall end,
It won't be very long till Jesus shall descend;
And then the dead in Christ from beds of clay shall rise
To meet the Lord and King up yonder in the skies.


It won't be very long till here we cease to roam,
It won't be very long till all the saints get home;
And then with smiling face we'll walk the streets of gold,
And sing the Savior's praise where saints are never old.


It won't be very long till bur-dens we lay down,
It won't be very long till we'll receive a crown;
And then we'll shout and sing with angels round the throne,
And when we meet up there, we'll know as we are known.

It won't be very long till earth shall pass away,
It won't be very long till works of men decay;
But Jesus has pre-pared a happy dwelling place,
For all who look above and trust His matchless grace.


It won't be very long,
It won't be very long
Till Jesus shall appear;
That day is drawing near;
Will you be ready then
To meet the ransomed throng?
Get ready for that day,
It won't be very long.

Sifting Through the Shavings

My Uncle Raymond McWhorter lived to the ripe old age of ninety-five. Actually he was my great-uncle being married to my grandfather’s younger sister Ann. Together Raymond and Ann raised five children, all of whom went on to live successful, productive, and honest lives. Uncle Raymond did a lot of things in his life. He was deputy sheriff for a while and made an unsuccessful bid to become sheriff. He drove a school bus and ran a gas station for brief periods of time. Mostly he was a farmer and he always had a truck that enabled him to pick up a few extra dollars hauling for neighbors and others who did not have a truck. Uncle Raymond lived slow and easy never getting overly excited about much. That is probably what made him a good trader and such a good at handling cattle (and maybe what helped him to live so long). When I knew Uncle Raymond he would go to the stockyards two or three times a week. I guess he practiced what we called “pinhooking”. Meaning that he would go to the sale barn, buy a animal or two from those bringing cattle to market, in the hopes of reselling them at a small profit perhaps even that same day. Or maybe he just went to the stock yards because it was a good place to loaf and catch up on the news. I knew Uncle Raymond as a kind and gracious man who was always willing to help a family member or neighbor. He took an interest in people, even if you were a great nephew who was just a boy. Now Uncle Raymond had his vices. He smoked a lot of Lucky Strikes. He was known to have sampled his share of Kentucky Whiskey (though I have to say I never detected any evidence of that). For leisure he loved to fox hunt and would stay out all night with his dogs and buddies enjoying the sport. Sometimes he would have to spend the daylight hours rounding up his dogs. He would sooner sleep in a lawn chair in the yard, day or night, than he would sleep in the house. But if that is the most harmful thing you can say about a person you really don’t have much to say. That is particularly so when these habits are accompanied with a persona of kindness and charm.

Uncle Raymond was not a churchman. But that changed one Sunday afternoon when he was in his mid 60’s. Upon testimony and encouragement given by a family member he gave his heart to the Lord and that very day was baptized into Christ and joined the fellowship of the Mt. Carmel Christian Church. To the surprise of a lot of folks he became a faithful worshipper of the Lord Jesus. As Aunt Ann aged she developed Alzheimer’s. When this occurred Uncle Raymond blossomed into a gentle and compassionate caregiver. For two years he barely left her side tending to her every need. When it finally became necessary to transition her to a nursing home he still made the trip every day to see her.

After Aunt Ann passed away Uncle Raymond re-married. Stories get a little twisted sometimes but here is the way I heard it: One of Uncle Raymond’s old fox hunting buddies had died. Uncle Raymond called his widow one day and said “I am looking for a wife.  Do you want to get married”? She said “I don’t know I’ll have to think about it”. Two hours later he calls her back and said “Well did you think about it”. The details are probably a little different than that but he and Mary did get married and enjoyed several years together before she passed away. Sometime before she passed he had also buried one of his sons.

I stopped to visit Uncle Raymond one day not to long after Mary had died. His eyesight was failing him. But I found him sitting under a shade tree whittling. He did a lot of that because there were enough shavings under that tree to fill a garbage bag. I enjoyed visiting with him. I asked him a few questions and then waited and listened to his careful drawn out responses. It took time to listen to Uncle Raymond. He was not going to give you much quick. He was not going to give you any information he did not want to tell you. That is the way he always was and that part of him had not changed with age. He said something to me that day that I have reflected upon quite a bit. He said “I don’t know why I whittle, I don’t make anything. I just whittle. It is just something to do”.  I guess if you live to be ninety-five and all your friends are dead and gone, you have buried two wives and one son, and your eyesight has failed and you are not able to do much and you are limited in where you can go, finding a shade tree and whittling is an ok thing to do. But I think he did make something. He made shavings. And as he whittled he looked down into those shavings and remembered and relived and reflected on his life. Each shaving he whittled from those sticks of wood was part of his life story. In that pile of shavings were his memories of joys and sorrows, people and places, events and ideas. In that pile of shavings were his thoughts of who he was and who he had become and who he would become in that glorious place he would go when his life on earth was over. Uncle Raymond kept most of his thoughts close to his vest. But if I had the opportunity to sift through that pile of shavings I think I might have his whole story.

Memories and Melodies

My mother was a woman who cherished memories. She took notes, treasured family gatherings, and always had her camera clicking. But at much too young of an age Alzheimer’s began to steal her memories. Her alertness to the world around her slowly faded to a blank stare and incoherent gaze. She has not known me for years. Nevertheless, I sometimes drive the distance to see her. On one of those occasions, about 20 months ago I found her in a state of chatter. I spoke to her and though I knew I would not be successful I tried to interact with her. But she stared blankly ahead oblivious to my presence and chattered away. I decided just to listen and did so for about an hour. Most of what she said made no sense but every now and then she would string 6 or 8 words together in a sentence. As I listened it occurred to me that there was something like a reel to reel tape playing her mind of events that occurred 50 plus years ago. In her demented state she was interacting with those events. I listened closely and discovered that I was on the reel to reel tape that she was interacting with. She would say “You know I have these two kids”. And if there were only two kids then one of them would have been me and that would have dated the event around 54 or 55 years ago. Once a brief smile came across her face as she said to one of those kids “Look at you, you are so cute” (I am quite certain she was probably referring to me). I realized something about my mother that day that I guess I already knew – The melody of her life was her children. That day she gave me a gift of listening as she recited the melody. Alzheimer’s had robbed her mind of the verses her life had written, but she was maintaining a feeble grasp on the melody.

Interacting with Yesteryear

I visited with my mother Thursday. Actually it is probably not correct to say that we visited. She has Alzheimer’s and has not known me for over two years. But I was there. We were in each other’s presence. The last two times I saw her she lay in a semi-sleep and barely said a word. But today she talked constantly. Some of her words were intelligible. Sometimes she could string 6 or 7 words together in the right order. I sat by her side and listened to her for an hour and a half. I tried to decipher a little of what might be going on in her mind. It was as if a reel to reel recording was being played over and over inside of her. She is part of the recording and she is interacting with the characters and verbalizing her part of the recording. The recording is obviously worn and it skips a lot. And from what I can pick up she changes to different reels at times. I make a few feeble attempts to let her know I am there but I cannot release her from the recording that has become a reality within her. So I give up and just listen. From what I can tell the recording she is interacting with took place sometime in her early adulthood. Once I heard her refer to her two kids. If she just had two, one of them would have been me. Once I heard her cite an antiquated phone # 550-J. I am left to wonder whose phone # that might have been. Finally it is time for me to go. I tell her goodbye. I tell her I love her. I kiss her on the forehead. I leave saddened but thankful. I had not heard my mother groan or moan or scream. I had simply witnessed her interact with a reality of a yesteryear. She seemed content in that reality.