Day 19 - Mom

Bio: My mom is a great lady. Here are things I love about her: I can make her laugh faster than anyone else, and her laugh is contagious. She values truth greatly, stands firm on it, and fights for it. She can turn any food into a tasty meal. She is shorter than me. When she makes a mistake, she genuinely apologizes for it, and I have watched her live this out since I was a little boy. Because she had two boys, she’s tackled a whole slew of boy things with gusto, including climbing a 14,000 foot peak in Colorado and spending bug-infested summer nights out camping. She has gorgeous red hair. She has a twin. When she and my Dad have problems, they work through them. When my brother and I tag team, we can totally fluster her! My Mom has a deep and honest relationship with God.

Challenge: Dear Ben, July 19 would have been Pop’s 98^th birthday. It would be nice if you would put some flowers on his grave. I can tell you how to get there. Love, Mom

Reaction: Pops was my grandfather, who passed away in 2007 in his late nineties. I had a couple distinct responses to this challenge. One, relief that the challenge wasn’t heavy on time commitment or activity. Two, surprise and, in a way, delight that the date had fallen just right for Pop’s birthday. Three, some sadness at the reminder that he is not with us any more. His passing still feels recent.

Recap: I drove by a flower shop after work and picked out two really brightly-colored flowers for the arrangement, purple and yellow. Pops was a super grandfather, and he loved getting people’s attention through jokes or magic tricks. He was very good at magic tricks. He could amaze me with his slight-of-hand, pulling coins out of my ear and making stuff in his hand disappear. Pops was a Baptist minister for several decades, and he loved people, loved talking to them and making them laugh and being part of their lives. I was glad for the chance to brighten up his grave marker on his birthday – he’d like that.

I drove over to the cemetery and found he and my Grandmother’s headstone, which reminded me of a Pops story. When Pops bought that headstone in the 1990’s, he left it in his trunk for the winter months (better traction, he said.) So he was trolling around town with his headstone rattling around his trunk. Frugal and practical, two of his most admired characteristics. (He couldn’t resist a sale, so whenever we needed soda, we’d visit Pops’ garage where he had a ton of 12-packs he’d acquired at sales.)

As it was a typical July day, I was sweating from the two-minute walk from my car to the gravesite. The sun was approaching the horizon, tinting everything with a golden hue. One unique thing about the headstone is that all the other ones on their row are facing west, but Pops and Grandmother’s are facing east. I hadn’t realized that before, and it brought a smile to my face. How appropriate.

I put the flowers down and messed with them a bit, moving them here then there until I liked where I’d placed them. I stared at the headstone. It is very simple, just names (Harold P. and Alice F. McGlamery) and years of birth and death. Not even the month or day, just the year. Again, frugal and practical. Many of the other headstones around them lack ornamentation- we Oklahomans are not easily given to unnecessary flourishes. I briefly considered whether I was sad their graves did not have flowers more often. I live close and could bring stuff by more often. But their headstone is good indication of how they wanted it to be. A simple marker of lives well-lived. Pops and Grandmother left behind something far better than a fancy gravestone. They left a legacy.

Both lived for Jesus faithfully, though they also had specific areas of faults and failures. They loved each other, not a mushy fairytale love, but a even-if-we-quarrel-daily-we-stand-by-each-other love. They were married for over 60 years. They raised good kids and spoiled their grandkids (but not too much.) And in their final years, when age and health slowly took away their independence and vitality, they kept their hearts focused on the hope of restoration and renewal in Christ.

So I sat for a moment at their graves, and said a few words in memory of Pops. I’m not sure if the ones who have passed on can hear what we say on earth anymore or not, but I told him how much he meant to me and how much he taught me. And (despite my over-dramatic nature), I left it at that. I got in the car, turned on the air conditioner, and drove home.