Twice each month, I made the four-hour drive from my home near Dallas to Natchitoches, Louisiana, so I could take Mom to her chemotherapy treatments. Sometimes she was in the hospital in Alexandria for more than a week. During the drives from home, I passionately prayed for God to do a miracle, but I often cried when I realized I wouldn’t have her much longer. She was losing her battle with cancer.
After yet another chemo treatment, I spent the night in Natchitoches so I could be rested for the long drive home the next morning.
“Rise and shine, bright eyes.” Mom’s cheery voice interrupted my dreams.
With a jolt, I sat straight up in bed. “Are you okay, Ma?”
“Yes, I’m fine. How about we take a ride to the graveyard?”
“Yeah, sure. That sounds good.” I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. What was she thinking?
“I’ll wait for you outside.” She sounded like she was ready for church and didn’t want us to be late.
I stumbled out of bed, made a pass at my teeth with a toothbrush, and slipped into my jeans and t‑shirt. Carrying my shoes, I bolted out the front door. Mom was standing by the car door, waiting for me with a cup coffee.
“I’m sorry to rush,” Mom said while I backed out of the driveway. “I’m feeling good this morning, and I want to make sure we get everything done.”
I took a sip of steaming coffee. “Good grief, Ma! You could jump start a ’56 Buick with this stuff—on a sub-zero morning in Amarillo.”
She grinned like she had made a man of me. “That’s Community Coffee. It’s the real deal in the coffee world. I thought you might need an extra boost to get you moving this morning.”
“Boost? I’m surprised you don’t have to be twenty-one to drink this stuff.”
She laughed with more pleasure than I had seen in a long time. “Drink your coffee and drive.” Over the past month, she had mentioned several times that she wanted to go to the graveyard as soon as she felt up to it. This must be the morning.
There was no need to ask why she wanted to go. She wanted to pick out the plot where she would be buried. She had her good days and bad days, but each month she grew weaker. We both knew she was dying. We didn’t have to talk about that.
Every night when I was with Mom, before she went to bed, we joined hands and I prayed with her. I always asked God to heal the cancer. I wanted my faith to produce the power that would make her well, but I couldn’t deny my deep feeling that God had a different plan. Although we never discussed it, I was sure Mom was emotionally preparing to die. I sensed her feeling of urgent need to finalize her funeral arrangements.
At Readhimer, I turned right on the winding one-lane trail to Strange Methodist Church Cemetery. Pine trees, with an occasional oak and hickory, crowded both sides of the road, making it difficult to see if a car was coming from the opposite direction. In the parking area, the car left shallow ruts in the clay and white sand. I parked beneath the spreading branches of a large oak and dashed around the front of the car to help Mom. I opened her door and offered my hand.
“No thanks. I think I can make it.” She stood
beside the car. “I’m glad we have a nice day for shopping at the cemetery.”
I picked up her coat from the back seat and helped her put it on. I strolled into the cemetery feeling like a boy taking his date to the senior prom. The square and rounded headstones faced toward the east. Family names like Weaver, Tyler, and Williams were chiseled into the granite, sometimes in ornate script. Etchings of crosses, angels, and babies adorned some of the more elaborate stones. Pink, red, and yellow artificial flowers filled the pots.
For only a moment, we paused at the half-circle headstone with SPEIR carved near the top, above the names James Clate and Ada Lee Tyler. Mom’s parents lay here. I remembered them as Papa and Granny, who cared for me like a favorite son.
Slowly, Mom walked past the markers of her brothers and one of her sisters. At Uncle Earl’s grave, she stopped. “There are three vacant plots right here.” She released my arm, took four short steps, and stood on a patch of lumpy grass in the middle of the space closest to her brother. “This looks like a pretty good spot, here next to Earl.” She chased a dirt clod with her toe. “What do you think?”
“Yep, looks good to me.” I stood beside her and pointed to the two adjacent spaces. “I’ll call Ginger Weaver and reserve a space for me. That way, I’ll be right beside you.”
Her smile and the gleam in her eyes told me I had given her an unexpected and deeply appreciated gift. “I would like that.” She gave my arm a warm squeeze. “I would like that very much.” She stared at the spaces next to hers. “Well then, this is where I want to be. When the end comes, you’ll be making the decisions. I don’t want you to have to make these choices. I’m going to tell you how I want things handled. When the end comes, do what I have asked. I don’t want you to second guess yourself, worrying whether you did the right thing. Do you get where I am coming from?”
“Yes, Mom, I understand. “
“If I’m in the hospital, don’t try to resuscitate me or hook me up to a breathing machine. You have my power of attorney, so you can tell Dr. Loya what I want. Don’t listen to anyone who tries to talk you into keeping me alive. I don’t want any code blues.”
“Okay, Ma. I’ll do exactly as you say.”
“Wayne, I know you love me, so it’s going to be tough telling people it’s time to let me die. You need to bow your neck and do it.”
I wanted to look up, but tears filled my eyes and my lips began to quiver. I stared at the clumps of grass until I regained my composure. “I will, Ma. I promise. You can depend on me.”
“I know I can. I’ve always depended on you, and you’ve never let me down.”
The way she said it struck me funny. I tried to stifle my giggle, but it burst through an unavoidable grin.
Mom smiled too, with a look of curiosity. “What’s so funny?”
“That’s exactly what you told me when I was a teenager, when you sent me for sanitary napkins at the store. I wanted to say, ‘Why don’t you get a gun and shoot me?’ At least that way, I could die quick.”
She laughed and so did I. It felt so good, I needed to finish the story.
“In line at the cash register, I felt the judging stares of housewives and little old ladies. I wanted to hide the box.” I wrapped my arm around an imaginary box as if it were as big and bulky as a suitcase. “Why does Kotex have to come in such a big blue box? The wait seemed like hours.”
The more Mom laughed, the more animated I
became. I acted the part of a sheepish kid, red-faced and impatient. “After the clerk counted my change, she said, ‘Do you want a bag for that?’ She might as well have shouted, ‘Look at this kid buying Kotex!’ In a squeaky whisper, I said, ‘A bag lined with lead would be nice. How about another bag to put over my head?’ I just knew everyone was wondering why that teenager was buying Kotex.”
“Well, honey, if you will remember, I offered to write a note for you to give the store manager.”
“That would have been worse. He would have held the paper to the light, asking, ‘Young man, how do I know this note isn’t forged?’ ” As we laughed together, I said, “The store wasn’t the end of that ordeal. Since I was on my motorcycle, I crammed the Kotex under my shirt for the ride home. What if I was in an accident? I’d be there, lying on the street, unconscious, with
Kotex pads scattered around me, blown by the wind. The newspaper would print a picture of me, lying in a field of Kotex pads with the headline: Super Absorbent Pads Save Teenager’s Life.”
Our laughter had been good medicine. We were both feeling good.
Mom looked toward the trees on the far side. “Would you like to go over to the old section and see how some of our kinfolk are doing?” As we walked, she said, “You are planning to preach my funeral, right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’d like that. You did a good job at Earl’s funeral. Say the same types of things—how we’ll meet Jesus in the air. Oh, and that part about how we immediately go to be with Jesus when we die.”
“You mean 2 Corinthians 5:8—to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Wayne, don’t go on and on. Twenty minutes should be plenty of time to say everything that needs to be said. Don’t make me out to be somebody I’m not. Nobody would believe it anyway, at least none of those who know me.”
“Is it okay if I tell the Kotex story?”
Mom grinned. “Honey, you can tell them whatever you want, as long as you keep it under twenty minutes.” She stopped at where the graves began. “Have I forgotten anything? Oh, yes. Be sure to sing ‘In Moments Like These.’ That’s the one that repeats the line, I love you, Lord.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“And don’t spend a lot of money on the casket. Just make sure the thing holds together long enough to get me into the ground.”
As we neared the back of the cemetery, the path narrowed. Three concrete headstones had markings inscribed by hand. One leaned to the left and the others leaned backward. Years of weather had blurred the inscriptions, but they were readable: Ross Speir, James Wesley, and Ray Cole. On each stone was written Son of Mr. and Mrs. J. C. Speir, with only one date, not two.
“Here are my three brothers who were still born,” Mom said. “That’s your grandfather’s writing.”
“I never heard Papa mention his babies.”
“He never talked about it, but your granny did. I remember her saying how her babies were in Heaven with Jesus. You know, I never heard your granny blame God for taking her babies. She said, ‘Life is hard. It’s a good thing we have Jesus.’ ”
We walked a little farther. “Here’s where your dad’s parents are,” Mom said. “I didn’t know Mr.
Henry very well, but when Mrs. Mattie spoke, people moved. She rode three miles on horseback from her place to Momma and Daddy’s so she could sit on the porch and hold you. She was one of the finest women I ever knew.”
“I remember her. Did I ever tell you about her feud with the flower ladies?”
“No, who were they?”
“You’re gonna love this, Ma. It was so like Momma Johnson. Albert and I went to visit her in the
nursing home. Her face lit up when she saw me. She loved to dip snuff while sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch. With her fingers, she formed a ‘V’ tight against her lips and blew a glob of chocolate-colored spit in a high arc over the railing and onto the ground below. She never missed. We laughed when I told Dad we could take her to Las Vegas and make a lot of money.”
Mom laughed like she knew exactly what I was talking about.
“We were about to leave when the director called Dad and me into his office. Some of the ladies had formed a club and planted lilies, pansies, and roses out front. Her spits of snuff were killing the flowers. It was so funny, Ma. Albert looked like a lost little boy when the director said he wanted him to tell Momma Johnson she couldn’t dip on the porch and spit over the rail.”
“What did Albert say to you?”
“Nothing. I never gave him the chance. I knew he wanted me to tell her, but there was no way I would tell her that. I told the director flat out, he shouldn’t let her small size fool him. She would raise all kinds of ruckus with the residents.”
“What did you do?”
“We found her another place on the porch, away from the flowers.”
Mom laughed. “Only a fool would try to keep her from spitting off the porch.” She walked toward the back fence and looked to her right. “There’s Milton Weaver’s grave. Do you remember Milton?”
“Yes, he was the mailman.”
“When I was a girl, he would stop by for coffee. He and Daddy were good friends. They talked about fishing and politics and everything else under the sun. Milton carried stamps to sell to folks on his route. If there was a Special Delivery, he made a special trip.”
On the way back to the car, Mom stopped at her parents’ graves. “Oh, how your granny loved to visit here. She walked among the graves, teetering on those bony bird legs of hers.”
“I know. Whenever I came to Reidhimer, this was the first place she wanted to go. She thought a trip to the graveyard was better than the parish fair.”
“I wonder how many biscuits she made in her life.”
“Gosh, I don’t know. More than Carter has pills. She always made a pan for dinner, and usually for breakfast. Carol has her wooden bowl—the one she used to mix the dough. She used the back of her hand to make a well in the flour before adding the lard and milk.”
“I can still see her at the kitchen counter,” Mom said, “squeezing dough between her fingers. She didn’t have a recipe. It was a bit of this and a dab of that. I could never make biscuits like hers.”
“Maybe so, but you are one fine cook. You make the best cornbread in the South.”
She smiled. “Even when you were a baby, you loved cornbread.”
“You’re also the chief pot rattler when it comes to cooking a mess of greens. Your mix of collard and turnip greens was a four-star award winner in anybody’s book. In fact, the only dish I didn’t like was the time you cooked that possum.”
“As I recall, it was a tad on the greasy side.”
“A tad?” I had to laugh. “The first bite felt like I had brushed my teeth with cold bacon grease.”
“Well, I had to give it a try.”
Back then, eating possum wasn’t funny, but the present memories sure were. I couldn’t recall a time when Mom and I had more fun telling stories. This was definitely one of her good days, the best in a long time.
Mom’s look turned serious. “Your granny would be pleased to know you’re in the ministry, going to seminary, and helping those kids in jail. She loved the Lord. What you’re doing would make her so proud. When I was little, Mother sat with me on the porch
after dinner. She read the Bible to me and asked me to read to her. She loved the scriptures about God’s grace. Her favorite song was ‘Amazing Grace.’ Do you
remember when she died?”
“Sure. From the funeral home, they took her to Uncle R.O.’s house.”
“Do you remember what she was buried in?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“It was a powder blue nightgown. You had seen it before. Two years earlier, you gave it to her as a Mother’s Day present.”
“Really? I don’t remember.”
“Your stepdad and I were going to Readhimer for Mother’s Day, so you asked me to take your gift to her. I thought I told you what happened, but maybe not. We were on the front porch, drinking coffee, when I gave her your present. She picked up the sleeve, rubbed it against her cheek, and said, ‘This is the gown I want to be buried in.’ She took me to her room and showed me right where she would keep it. ‘The gown will be right here,’ she said. ‘Make sure I’m buried in this gown.’ I told her I would, and I did.”
“Thanks for letting me know.” I was humbled that Granny placed such a high value on my gift. She was a wonderful woman. “You know, Mom, some people thought Granny was weird because she visited here so much. I don’t think she was weird. Why do you think she enjoyed coming to the graveyard like she did?”
“When I was little, I wondered about that. You have to understand, your granny didn’t like just any cemetery. It was this one, because it was alive with memories that were part of her life. She used to say people we love and who love us are gifts from God. She believed in the day when Jesus would return and raise Christians from their graves. You used some of those scriptures at your Uncle Earl’s funeral.”
I nodded, barely able to withhold my tears of gratitude for the love God had shown to me through
Granny and now by Mom.
“Your granny was quite a woman. She cared little for physical stuff. She mostly valued those she loved. She was also one of the community’s first women’s libbers.”
“Really? Not Granny.”
“Yes, she was the first woman in Readhimer to cut her hair. Remember how your Aunt Mammy’s hair was?”
“As far as I know, she never had it cut.”
“It caused quite a stir when your granny cut her hair. She was a true pioneer in many ways.” Mom glanced toward the car. “Are you about ready to leave?”
“Sure. Is there anywhere else you would like to go?”
“No, let’s head back to Natchitoches.”
As I drove the winding road from the cemetery, I hoped I would have the strength to carry out Mom’s wishes. How would I handle myself when it came time to say my final good-byes?
I hoped, when it came time for me to face my own death, God would give me as much strength and dignity as he had given Mom.