100 Years

 Today is my mother's 100th birthday!  I decided to use some of the words from her funeral sermon by Emmet Powers, her minister, to honor her on this day.

"September 10, 1920, Bessie Jane Boyle bounced into this world.  Her years spanned such incredible eras in our nation's history, most that radically affected her culture here (Lonoke, Arkansas) where she was raised and later came back home to live.  Somewhere along the way she resolved to live out her changing times with energy and optimism.  Maybe it was born of her years as a navy wife, living in Boston or Providence, Rhode Island or Brooklyn.

Or maybe it came from her years living in Sicily.

Or maybe it was something just born in her to engage her life actively one day at a time.  That stands as a model for our own ways of doing whatever it is that gives us fulfillment in life.

She worked for the late Jack Walls and later in the office of attorney Mike Stewart for 45 years, from 1961 - 2006.  She retired at age 85 - just 3 years before her death.

We looked up to her as a positive model in so many ways, but especially comes to mind her physical abilities at such a late age.  So many have said to me how they hope that by their later years they, too, will have such endurance. How many of us would still like to be driving, mowing our own grass, and keeping a busy social calendar at age 88?

Some of us walked with Mrs. Bessie not long ago when her dear friend and sister-in-law Mary passed away.  They were inseparable, you know, each one giving the other comfort and company.  Rarely a day went by that they were not together.  Mary's going home was so very difficult for Bessie.  Only once in the 7 years I knew her did she seem burdened.  I asked her a few weeks afterwards about how she was working through her grief.  "It's been hard, Emmett, I'll tell you." and that was all she would say.  We find comfort and even joy knowing that they have been reunited in God's own way of bringing peace - reunited not only with Mary, but all those whom she loved throughout her life who proceeded her in death. 

 Our first thought when she was not here at church, which was hardly ever, was not that she might be sick.  On the contrary, we figured she was traveling somewhere and would be back the next week.  She is older than most of us in this church by a generation. She was our hero, as one person put it.  Our thoughts today are much like others in this community, "How will we ever get along without her presence with us?"  

For that we trust in God."