I have found over the years that there is a very fine line that separates joy and pain. I first discovered that line as a child, though as a child I did not understand the magnitude of the discovery. It was not until the birth of my first son that I fully realized the hairs-breadth that divides the two dominant realms of earth. One second my beloved wife writhed in agony. A second later her face glowed radiant with happiness as she listened to the wondrous cry of our first-born child.It was the miracle of life illustrating the principal theme of human existence: joy is found somewhere amidst the wonder and the wounds.
I discovered again last week the thinness of the veil that hangs between those opposing vistas. On a crisp, sparkling fall afternoon, the kind that brings forth the sounds of playing children and the twinkle of sunlight glistening upon moistened eyes, I laid my beloved mother to rest. Beneath the flower-covered grass of Chandler Mountain we placed her heart of gold. It was a place she had longed to be since her once strong and active body became but a shell of its former self.
Still bright of mind and positive in spirit, her frail frame was now bound to the tether of wheels on a chair, no place for a woman so charged with life. She longed to walk, to dance, to skip, to plant, to visit, to work, to touch, to laugh, to grow! Hers was a world of promise where strength of purpose, boldness of character and the will to love and serve had once met in a celebration of glory.
Mother was the hapless child of the Great Depression who had risen from near constant hunger and flour-sack school dresses to a home of comfort and a place of prominence and respect. Her funeral spoke of her success. Gathered around the casket of this hairdresser who managed only an eighth-grade education were people from virtually every station in life: bankers and custodians, politicians and mill workers, teachers and farmers, school superintendents and housewives, physicians and road workers, musicians and maids, business leaders and retirees, people of means and people of poverty, fine rural ministers with high school diplomas and prominent downtown ministers with Ph.D.s, teens and children and people of color, youthful college students and those as aged as herself.
They all came in honor of this tiny woman who lived a life that mattered, not because it was a loud and boisterous life that demanded place and power. She was loved and admired because she lived in quiet dignity. She reached out in love with words of support and outstretched hands of acceptance.
At her funeral were the parents of a now-deceased young gay man. Mother made cakes for him and often invited him to her table long after the scourge of AIDS had ravaged his body. On her bedroom wall hangs the picture of a teenaged mother and her interracial child. Born of an out-of-wedlock union in a Deep South society where interracial dating still raises eyebrows and produces much discomfort, that teenaged mother found welcome in “Aunt Audrey's” home. And this despite my mother's own discomfort wrought from a lifetime of ingrained southern sensibilities which she had the integrity to question and at least wrestle with.
In the 1970s her wrestling spirit brought her the courage to make welcome in her house the African-American lads of her community who were welcomed in no other white person's home. They were more than teenagers who cut her grass. They became her friends, and she became their family. No one dared criticize her. Why bother? She was much too strong to let words foil her Christian spirit.
Was she perfect? Oh, no, she was not. Quite opinionated and sometimes overly direct, she did not suffer fools lightly. And make no mistake; she defined the bounds of foolishness. Overly-protective and possessive of her only child, she found sharing him with others difficult, even with those who loved him.
There was more. Rather quick and high tempered, she actually appeared to enjoy an occasional squabble, especially with loud and abrasive politicians, whom she usually viewed as fodder. Amazingly insecure in her inner life, she was a study in contrasts. This woman who was so admired by people from all walks of life found it very hard to accept her acceptance. Her lack of formal education embarrassed her. Thus she shrank from social situations where she often longed to be and where others actually wished for her to participate. Her strong intelligence and jovial personality spanned her weaknesses, and everyone knew that — everyone but her.
But perhaps her most disconcerting imperfection was also by far her greatest strength. As there is a fine line between joy and pain, there was in her life an even finer line between stubbornness and dogged determination. When this trait manifested itself in stubbornness, a legion of angels could not budge her. However, this same trait that could produce such intransigence was also a vital key to her personal success and her longevity in the face of a quarter century of heartbreak and ill health. Sixteen surgical procedures, a crippling leg amputation, the death of my father, her sister and brother, the death of her best friend, two major heart attacks and 25 years of physical instability never slowed her. She conquered them all. Her deep faith, sheer grit and a well-known determination to overcome whatever obstacle was before her was an example for all who knew her. Defeat was not in her vocabulary. Perseverance and victory: those were her words!
No! The drab room of a nursing center was no place for a life such as this. Her day had been; her time had come. Now was the day for final victory. Now was the day for home-going!
Truly it was a day of mourning. Surpassed only by my loving and cherished wife, my mother was my dearest friend. Many pray for me, but Mom was the only one who I knew beyond doubt prayed for me as faithfully as the rising of the sun. As the first beams of light warmed the earth at daybreak, my mother prayed for me. As the moon rose in the nighttime sky, she prayed for me again. No others are so constant in their petitions for my life. Only a good mother's love breeds such faithfulness, and only faith breeds the confidence to beckon the Almighty twice a day on behalf of a beloved son.
As that crisp fall day began I said to myself, “I wonder how different my life will be now? Will my days be heavier without her prayers rising on my behalf? Will my strength be diminished without her daily calls to God for her only son?” But then I thought, “No, now she will be walking daily with the One to whom she has called each day and night. Now she can ask him face to face to bless her son, and God himself knows she is not one to take “no” for an answer — not even from the Lord of Life!”
Yes, it was a day of mourning, but it was also a day of joy. For that day of sadness also brought with it the glad release of a spirit too young to be so old. Death had set free this tired child of a bygone era who had so embodied the awesome power of God's hope. Hers was truly a life too vibrant to be chained to an oxygen hose. She needed and she longed for the breath of life — real life — the kind of life that only the sting of death could bring. She hoped for that glad reunion with my long-departed father, her parents, her siblings, her friends and loved ones. She prayed to be with the Christ she had loved so dearly but whose face she had yet to see.
She loved her son and his wife, her grandchildren, and the grandchildren who lived next door whom she adopted as her own. She loved her sister, her brother, her nieces and nephews, her friends, her church, her town and her life. But she was also far too wise to be fooled into thinking that such love could only be held on this side of life's highway. She knew her love for all she cherished would only grow brighter and deeper when she was released from the prison that had become her body to sprint again without effort across the fields of glory.
The line that separates joy and pain was blurred for me again last week. But as I think about that line, I realize how precious is the gift of a parent's love — and how precious is the love of a Heavenly Father whose mercy sets the captive free even when the breaking of a mother's shackles breaks the heart of her son!
Ah, yes — the prize is worth the pain!
Goodbye, dear mother. I love you so! You fought the good fight. You kept the faith. Now it is time for your newest journey — the journey from home to home!
How grateful I am! And how proud to be your son!
Audrey H. McDearis, age 81, died on Sept. 29, 2003. She was the mother of one son, Tommy McDearis, who is senior pastor of Blacksburg Baptist Church in Blacksburg.