"Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that loves the LORD, she shall be praised." Proverbs 31:30
November 27, 2023 - I awoke this morning with my Mother’s last words flowing through my mind. In the months that her health began to fail, she made several visits with her children and eventually moved to my sister Pat's home in Henderson, Texas.
Pat called one day and said that Mother had been admitted to the hospital there. When we entered her room, she was sitting on the side of the bed demonstrating her usual sense of humor to her young male nurse. "Are you saved?" she asked him. "Do you like your job here?"
While we laughed and talked with her, she finished the last bite of a steamed carrot…holding it high in her left hand and commenting on how good they are for us. "The food is really good here," she mused. "Not like some hospitals."
We left her room that night relieved that she was looking and feeling so good. I hugged her and told her I loved her, and as I walked into the hallway, I overheard her tell Pam, "Tell Hen Doug I love him."
When we got back home to San Augustine and called the hospital, we learned that the doctor had been called to her room. We jumped back into the truck and a highway patrolman clocked our speed at 90 MPH as we crossed the Flat Fork Creek Bridge near Center. He gave us a verbal warning and when we arrived back at the hospital we found that Mother had already crossed the Jordan. A few days later I delivered the eulogy at her funeral and we buried her body next to Daddy's in the Cemetery on Logansport Highway.
Pam and I have passed by the cemetery many times since that day. And as we pass by, Mother's words always come to mind: "Tell Hen Doug I love him." And quietly under my breath, I always whisper:
"And I love you…. my dear Mother."
