It has taken me a few weeks to get to the point of thinking I could write this, but I want to add my mother’s name to this list of ordinary saints. She stepped beyond this world for the next around noon on Good Friday, 30 March 2018. She was, in plain terms, very ready to join my Dad, who died late in the summer of 2010. Those seven-plus years were more enduredthan lived. That doesn’t mean she was difficult to be around, just that she genuinely wanted to be with my Dad.
She was an only child who married the third child of a family of six and ended up being mother to five of her own children. She was more of a city girl – Charleston, Sullivan’s Island kinds of places – but spent all of her married life in rural Berkeley County. But that didn’t matter, she and my Dad were deeply in love and enjoyed an incredibly happy, loving marriage for over sixty years. Wherever he was, she was happy.
As a college senior, I remember writing my parents a letter thanking them for how they raised me. I’m sure growing up I didn’t think they were such good parents, but by college graduation I finally had the good sense to recognize how God has blessed me and my four siblings. One of the greatest blessings – other than the whole faith story we were raised in – was that she was very curious about everything. She loved learning, and despite the fact that she didn’t graduate from college, she was among the best read and most inquisitive people I’ve ever known.
I guess those every-other week stops of the Berkeley County Book Mobile where we had to check out a book and actually read it before the two weeks were up paid off. I’d like to think I inherited some of her love for learning, love for reading, and curiosity concerning just about anything. She was a dangerous person to play word games with – and unlike some, she didn’t cheat when it came to word games!
She loved flowers, trees, and nicely mowed grass. I remember visiting my parents in 1989 after Hurricane Hugo – the devastating storm that hit Charleston and came right on to Berkeley County. She was grateful that their house withstood the storm, though many farm buildings didn’t. But the most telling phrase she said to me was “The trees. Will they ever be as beautiful as they were?” Thankfully she lived long enough to see a great recovery from that devastating story.
She was very inquisitive about God. I think I learned from her that it was okay to ask God anything. He wasn’t afraid of our questions nor offended by them. If there is any reality our imagery of asking Bible characters questions in heaven, she and Paul may yet be discussing things. Intrigued by him, I remember her sometime saying, “that Paul . . .” in a tone that expressed wonder about what he said. That wonder was sometime in the spirit of “are you sure you meant to say that Paul?”
Kind and unassuming, my mother never had to be the center of attention. Both she and my Dad seemed to feel comfortable in their skin and never felt the need to show boat in front of others. I think I was in seventh grade (about 1963) when my school system implemented what they called “the new math.” I have no idea as to what was “new” about it, but it do remember it created a bit of a stir. My mother took some class that was offered in our school system for parents on how to help your children do the new math. Seems like it was six weeks long for some reason. What I do know is that she could help me with my math homework in ways lightyears beyond my certified school teacher did in the classroom. She never enjoyed the status given to or self-assumed by lots of school teacher back in those days, but could run circles around many when it came to “the new math.”
She was mostly a stay-at-home mother until my youngest brother was well into elementary school. She did some substitute teaching and eventually worked for a number of years at the Berkeley County Gulf Oil Distributor as what we would call today an administrative assistant. She sometimes kept other people’s children, but don’t remember that she was paid for that in any significant way.
She and my Dad managed t raise five children to adulthood and marriage. When she died a few weeks back, all five of their children and their spouses were still living and still married. No deaths. No divorces. That’s a pretty amazing feat in and of itself.
After my Dad retired, they spent a lot of time in their motor home, mostly up at Oconee State Park in the northwest corner of South Carolina, and occasionally at the beach. I’m confident my conviction that God wants me to live on the beach was a blessed gift from my mother. She was fine with the mountains, but an occasional trip to Edisto Island or Huntingdon Beach was good.
She was a good cook – though I can’t say I think she particularly liked to cook. She could, as was so common back in the day, can or freeze any kind of vegetable my Dad could grow. I don’t’ think she found that all that fun either. She hated liver – another gift she gave me. Every time a cow was butchered my Dad insisted we have a supper meal of fried liver. For some reason I have a very vivid mental image of her putting a platter of fried liver and gravy, a bowl of rice, and vegetables on the table with a distinctly turned-up nose.
One of the sobering realities of the fact that both of my parents – as is true for Vicki as well – are no longer in this world is that I finally realize I am a real adult. As long as your parents are living, it is easy to assume everything comes down to their word. But no more.
I’m grateful that in the midst of that realization I know I had parents who modeled what loving Jesus, loving neighbor, loving each other, and loving their children, children-in-law, grandchildren, and beyond ought to look like.
Now if God will just help me do as well!
Wye Huxford 