Mom and Dad were married in 1952, at ages 14 and 17, and began having babies the very next year. They were just kids themselves!
They ended up with 3 of us. I’m the oldest, born when mom was just 15. The next year she had a baby boy, severely retarded, who only lived a couple of months. Four years later, our brother, Bruce, was born, also retarded, but he lived until age 24. When Bruce and I were 7 and 11, Mom and Dad legally adopted our cousin, Elizabeth. She was only 5 months old, and had been born into a bad situation. They likely saved her life.
So Dad worked, sometimes 2 and 3 jobs, and Mom raised us, especially Bruce, who had a lot of physical and mental challenges. I have wonderful, happy memories of our family and growing up, but it wasn’t perfect.
My mom had serious emotional scars from being raised by my grandfather who was a monster to his own children: 5 girls and 2 boys who suffered his abuse and the permanent scars he left. That was why Mom was so young when she married, just to escape him.
But she didn’t just run away, she thrived. When Dad died in 2022, they were just 4 months short of being married 70 years!
Mom was born to be a mother, and I am convinced that God handpicked her to be Bruce’s mom, as well as ours. Doctors through the years tried to convince her to put Bruce away in a home or an institution, but she would have none of it. Now looking back, I realize the quality of life and protection she gave him that nobody else could have. And all the work my Dad did to support all of us ... they were still paying off medical bills long after Bruce had passed away.
But her emotional scars never really healed, and as the years rolled by, the cracks began to show. She had obvious trust issues that interfered with her being able to develop and maintain relationships. It was not unusual for her to have a longtime friend, only to end it abruptly because of some untoward comment or action. Because of her hatred for her father, she pulled away more and more from her own family over the years until those bonds were broken, too.
Added to that was a medical issue that slowly over time took her hearing. By age 40, she was totally deaf. She could read lips fairly well, but never learned sign language. Eventually, she gave up driving, too. Dad became her whole and only world. He stood by her, though. He survived through it all probably because he still had outlets: work and friends at church, and church ministries he was involved in.
Elizabeth and I used to speculate what would happen if Dad died first.
We knew, that if Mom died first, Dad would likely be okay. Would he come back into our lives? Could we have a relationship with him again?
But what if Dad died first? Mom was deaf. Unable to drive. Unable to call for help. Isolated and alone. Would we find out one day, after the fact, that she had been discovered dead, alone in her house, and had probably been there for weeks or even months?
So when we got that awful letter in the summer of 2010, Elizabeth began praying:
God, please, if anything ever happens, if they are ever in a situation where they need us, please, please, please let us know. We know they won’t likely ask themselves, so please make sure we know when that time comes and we need to be there for them.
Then, one Monday morning, early in March of 2022, I received an email from a nursing home in Jonesboro … Dad had passed away the day before and they needed family to come help Mom make funeral arrangements.
Never believe that God doesn’t answer prayer!