Gentleman Bob Case's mother lived 92 years. Bob cherishes her life and stories ... and character. Many stories Case's mother told him centered on her own mother, Case's grandmother whom Bob clearly knows though he never met. She lives to this day and almost certainly will live forever.
Here, witness her love, literally from the grave.
Case's mother told him a particular story often, and hearing him tell it, one knows that he has never tired of it, for the story contains much of what his mother was, at her core. And, hearing him repeat it, one knows that her story contains much of what Case is, at his core.
Case's mother, the eldest child, was only nine years old when her own mother died. Her mother had sensed for some time that she was dying. She spent her last months preparing the young daughter as best she could to take over the tasks of keeping the family intact and the household running. These responsibilities included caring for her younger brothers while her hardworking father, a poor subsistence farmer, was in the fields, usually from daylight to dark: All the endless chores, cooking, cleaning, canning and caring, would now be hers.
That little girl who, years later, became Case's mother, described this difficult life, not in despair, but being, "as it should have been."
But, life was lonely in their remote section of the country. There was no one for this girl to talk to during the long days after chores and before supper. But, Case's mother found the solution for then and for a lifetime and more. She resorted to taking her young brothers to the nearby cemetery.
"There were nice shady, sandy places there for the boys to play. And there," Case's mother reported, "I could talk to mother. Listen, too. This made things so much better."
Now you've listened, as I listened, as Bob listened, as his mother had listened, to her still loving mother whom we all now know and revere.
There is more than a trace of the immortality here that the Apostle Paul describes in I Corinthians 15: 54-55. "And when our mortality has been clothed with immortality, then the sayings of scripture will come true: 'Death is swallowed up; victory is won!' 'O Death, where is your victory? O Death, where is your sting?'"
Ben Burton is former Trojan football coach and industrial manager who took early retirement to pursue a career as a professional speaker/humorist and writer. Now retired, he lives in Hot Springs.
Religion on 08/01/2015