I hope you enjoy watching the video above with snapshots of my mother's extraordinary life set to the music of Robin Mark whose artistry she loved. I prepared the video and the remarks below for my mother's memorial service (2 of them!) in October and November 2019...
“And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.” Mark 14:9
There aren’t enough words, or the right words, to describe someone I have known all my life, Even before I knew words at all. Before I knew anything else, I was cloistered in the womb, listening to the beat of my mother’s heart. In time, like all of us, I would be born, and come to know, and take for granted, my mother’s devotion.
Mom devoted her life to God, to her husband, and to her children. Her relationship with God was lifelong and heartfelt. The seeds of faith were planted when, as a little girl, she attended Sunday School at the First Baptist Church of Hollywood. She cherished the memory of Easter Sunrise services at the Hollywood Bowl, an annual event that began just 7 years before her birth. She remembered poignantly, wearing a black robe, which, at the moment of dawn would be taken off revealing white vestments underneath. Amidst a black background there would be the white of a cross. Mom was one of the Children’s Living Cross Chorus members in white.
In her high school years, Mom was drawn to the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood. Many of you know the story of how, during the Second World War, she attended a Sunday afternoon service for military personnel along with her father. During the service, she leaned over to her father, pointed to the man on the platform leading the singing, and said, “I’m going to marry that man.” And she did, though it took a little bit of finagling.
My father used to say, “Don’t simply marry a person you think you can live with. Marry the person you can’t live without.” One would think, based upon that statement, that Dad was sure Mom was the person he could not live without. So, imagine my surprise when Mom told me long after Dad had passed, that she had given him an ultimatum, and that is what led to their wedding day. She told him, “Either we get married, or the relationship is over.” Fish, or cut bait. Well, we know how that turned out.
Suffice to say, I’m not sure I have ever met any woman more devoted to her husband than Mom was to Dad. She submitted to every idea he had, including buying a hundred-acre ranch in Oregon, which wasn’t exactly her preferred place to live. Even in their last years together, Dad was wanting to set out on new adventures, like joining my brother Roger and his wife Lorrie in Virginia to help start a youth camp. Again, it wasn’t the place where the Hollywood girl wanted to live. She often referred to being “put out to pasture”. But she went along with the idea because of the man she loved.
On their wedding rings, Mom and Dad had inscribed Ruth 1:16-17. When Mom showed the ring to her father, he looked at the inscription and said, “That son-of-a-gun gave you another girl’s ring. Look here, it even has her name…Ruth!” Mom explained, “No Dad, that’s a verse from the Bible.”
The verse goes like this… "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me."
Mom remained true to the ideal of those verses her whole life. She was devoted to God. She was devoted to her husband. And she was devoted to her children. I think most people believe they have the best mother in the world. The difference for my siblings and me, is that we really did.
Mom had all the ideal gifts for being a great mother… When I think of her, I picture all the great “ing” words…
- Reading (the Bible)
- Writing (Poetry)
- Painting
- Stitching
- Dancing
- Shopping
- Cooking
- Baking
- Listening
- Encouraging
- Laughing
- Loving
First, cooking and baking. A taste is worth a thousand words… I wish I could give you that taste. The recipes from her cookbook she left behind are truly a gift that keeps on giving.
Listening… Sometimes, as teenagers, we did not enjoy Mom’s acute sense of hearing… especially when we might try to sneak into the house late at night. But other times, I know I was very grateful for her listening ear, and her encouragement. She was seldom, if ever, critical, though she could offer a soft critique that had the greatest power to make one do better the next time. I remember sharing with her a tape recording of one of my early sermons. Her only comment after listening was, “You had three great sermons there.” A soft critique that had a powerfully helpful impact.
Laughing… Mom had a great sense of humor, including the ability to laugh at herself… Dad travelled … a lot. During one of his journeys away from home, Mom also took a trip, uncharacteristically, on her own. She drove herself to the airport, and when she parked her vehicle, she noted that she was parked next to a blue car. She took note of that fact so that she could find her car when she returned from her trip. Now, we may all laugh at the scatterbrained thinking involved in that plan… almost suitable for an “I Love Lucy” episode. But here’s the thing, when Mom returned, she found her car still parked at the airport next to that blue car… It was Dad’s. She told me that story when I was young … and I laughed. And all I had to do throughout the rest of her life, to put a smile on her face, was to say… “parked next to a blue car.”
In July of this year when my brothers and I gathered around Mom’s bedside, we read John 14 together, all about Jesus getting her room ready in heaven. I asked Mom, “What are you most looking forward to in heaven?” She said, “Seeing my Lord, and seeing my husband.” That was Mom. She always had her priorities right.
And she was an example to us all… in her love for God, her love for her husband, and her love for her children.
One more love that Mom and Dad shared … was a love for Switzerland. It was a place Dad discovered on one of his trips, and he had to take Mom to see it. See it they did, many times, staying in some of the finest hotels, and drinking in the scenery… Their first journey there happened soon after the movie “Doctor Zhivago” came out in theatres. The theme song of that movie, became their theme song, I think it always reminded them of Switzerland and their love for one another. Last month, Becky and I were eating dinner at the Trapp Family Lodge near our home in Stowe, Vermont. I was talking about what I wanted to say at Mom's memorial service, and I already had this song in mind, but I wasn’t sure, should I share this? At that moment, the pianist in the dining room began to play this song…
Somewhere my love there will be songs to sing
Although the snow covers the hope of Spring
Somewhere a hill blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams, all that your heart can hold
Someday we’ll meet again, my love
Someday whenever the Spring breaks through
You’ll come to me, out of the long-ago
Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow
Till then, my sweet,
think of me now and then
Godspeed, my love,
till you are mine again ...
I love you Mom, and I will miss you … until we meet again…
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