The Forgotten Church

The congregation swoons as the oldest member of the congregation walks into early service on Sunday morning with only the aid of her walker.  We all admire the determination of an 94 year old who wants to worship with her church family every week.  We build a memorial park for a beloved Sunday school teacher who dies after a prolonged illness.  Beautiful flowers are planted, a plaque erected and a special dedication service performed.

As I prepare in advance for my mother’s eventual funeral, I think about who will perform the various parts of her last service – the eulogy, the prayer, the words of comfort to the family.  From a church of 300 members with a staff of eight, who knows her?  Who visits her?  Who is her pastor?  Who has been there to give her comfort in her difficult, final days?

The part-time, visitation pastor, who is a retired minister in his 80’s, has visited her.  He will have a part in her final service.  Unfortunately, he only knows the withered, 84 year old woman who had a sweet, singing voice and beautiful smile.  Her ten year battle with dementia has robbed her of her brilliant, creative mind and quick wit.  He knows nothing of who she was before the disease.

The church has forgotten her.  They have forgotten that this is still her home church.  A congregation where she sung in the choir, made pies, taught children, cleaned toilets, gave money and loved on people.  They don’t remember that she took three children to church three times a week picking up neighbors along the way or how she patiently prayed for her unsaved husband until he came to know Christ for himself.  She lived out the love of God to everyone around her but no one remembers.

The congregation moves on with the newest programs, technology and music.  It ministers to underprivileged children down the street as well as the poor in Central America.  Church members come and go like the waves of the ocean.  It is a challenge to remember anyone’s name let alone get to know them on a personal basis.  How can anyone be expected to remember someone who has not attended a service in eight years?

My mom’s eulogy will be presented by one of her former 4^th and 5^th grade Sunday school students.  She is now a professor of Biblical Studies at a Christian university and a dynamic preacher.  She remembers my mom as a vibrant, 50-something who placed in her young heart a love of the Word of God.  That is how my mom deserves to be remembered.

10 years ago

It is the tenth anniversary of September the 11^th  and a day to remember the 3,000 innocent Americans who lost their lives on September 11, 2001.  It is the one day a year when the news outlets replay those horrible pictures of airliners crashing into The World Trade Center and buildings collapsing.  On this anniversary there will be many more pictures shown than usual.  They are hard to watch but it is important to remember.  Those pictures are forever seared into our memories along with other horrific national events such as the assassination of President Kennedy and the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.  After ten years, I am surprised how sad seeing those images again make me.  They bring back the feelings I and many others experienced collectively that day – deep sadness, fear and a sense of loss.

The thing I remember most about the first Patriot’s Day was the crystal blue sky.  That week had been difficult for my family already.  The weekend before my father had suffered a grand mal seizure that had caused his heart to beat irregularly.  My brother had suggested I come home to Nashville to be with my dad so I drove down from East Tennessee alone and planned to stay as long as necessary.  Since my father had a history of heart blockage, the doctor had scheduled him to have an arteriogram on the morning of Tuesday, September 11^th.  As I was driving from my parent’s home to Baptist Hospital that morning, the announcer on the radio was saying a plane had hit a building.  I assumed it was a local accident perhaps involving a private plane.  When I got to my dad’s hospital room, the television news was showing the video of the first airplane hitting the tower.  For the next several hours, I sat on the window seal in his hospital room starring up at the television mounted to the wall as the second plane hit the second tower, the second tower fell and then the first tower fell.  We were horrified.

Then, the fear started to creep in.  In those first few hours, we did not know how widespread the attack would be.  I called my husband at his school.  I checked in with my daughters.  I was in Nashville, the state capital of Tennessee.  It occurred to me that I may be in more danger in downtown Nashville than Jerry was in Greeneville.  Announcements were made over the hospital loudspeaker that the hospital had been secured and that we were in no danger.  I remember seeing a woman in Muslim dress walk past the hospital room door and being afraid of what she might be planning.  We were already anxious about the arteriogram and now we were afraid for our lives and the lives of our families.

The staff finally came and got my father and took him down for his test.  My mother and I went down with him to wait anxiously.  With the test completed, we returned to his room and the television with the horrible images of people running, their bodies covered in dust.  We were now getting reports of the Pentagon attack and the plane crash in Pennsylvania.  The day went from bad to worst when the doctor walked into the room and switched off the TV.  The blockage had gotten worse.  I could see tears pooling in my 79 year old father’s eyes.  The doctor saw them too because he said the next step would be by-pass surgery.  My father asked if they did open heart surgery on almost 80 year old men.  We do, the doctor said.  We had a glimmer of hope which was more than many families had that day.

In the sad days that followed, my dad had his by-pass surgery and survived it.  He was never really well after that but he did live two more years before cancer finally got him.  I went home to Greeneville and my dear husband who had celebrated his 50^th birthday without me.  I remember lying in bed crying uncontrollably as I watched the TV special in which Celine Dion sang the National Anthem.  The stress, sadness and fear had finally been released and I, like so many, began to realize how much our lives had changed as a result of that one day.

We will be celebrating my husband's 60th birthday on Tuesday.  It is a different world than it was ten years ago.  Our grandson is 10 and our granddaughter is almost 7.  They have not known a world without war.  They never knew my dad.  My mom does not know that it is September or that her husband has passed away but she still has her beautiful smile.  The world goes on and there is hope again.  I am hoping for a crystal, clear blue day.  

My Valentine

My husband, Jerry, and I met on September 13, 1969. I remember the date because it was Jerry’s 18th birthday. His family was visiting friends at my church on the weekend they were taking him to start school at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville. You might call it a chance meeting since he lived in Greeneville, which is in upper East Tennessee, and I lived in Nashville. Our mutual friend had told me he was cute and she was right. His sandy brown hair was swept across his forehead and he was wearing a sports coat and tie. I am a sucker for a guy in a suit. He looked like a cross between Justin Bieber and James Bond. We whispered and passed notes during the church service.


From that moment on, there was no one else for me but Jerry. He is my soul mate. The person God intended for me to spend the rest of the life with. He completes me. He is what I am not and I am what he is not. He loves me completely for no reason and for every reason. God sent Jerry in that lovely, royal blue, double-breasted sports coat to me. He is my friend, lover, husband, and companion. He is the father of my children and grandfather of my grandchildren. When I prayed for a husband during youth camp the summer before we met, God smiled and thought of Jerry. Months before our “chance” meeting, God put into motion a plan for getting Jerry from East Tennessee to Nashville so we could meet. I tell Jerry that I was made for him. After all, God gave me to him for his eighteenth birthday.