A Centenary Observation
The noisemakers and party hats sit in their packages unopened on the shelf where Susan had placed them waiting for this date. This was to be the celebration of Nelle Frances Flanery Dishman’s 100th birthday, born on September 14 1903, which as it turned out was her mother’s 19th birthday. The poem that I was to recite commemorating this centenary remains unwritten, only a lingering memory in my mind. And though the National Weather Service predicted that this would be a sunny Sunday, unexpectedly it rained all morning, as if nature itself was shedding tears that my mother was not here with it to celebrate such a noteworthy day.
A year ago we had been quite confident that Mom would “make it” to this date. After all the experts in the actuarial field had noted that once you passed your 95th birthday, your life expectancy actually goes UP! Mom was in great health, had a wonderful mind–and all of us silently thought to ourselves that she would probably outlive Susan, given the latter’s serious illness.
But the Lord had other plans, and so I sit here today–totally alone–probably the only one to remember that this is Mom’s hundredth birthday. Yet, I do not mourn as one who has no hope. Indeed, I picture Mom and Susan and Mom’s mom (we called her “Nannaw”) and Susan’s mom (Helen) sitting before the throne of Jesus rejoicing over the great gift that the Lord gave to our family in the person of Mom individually, and of all four of these much beloved women, collectively.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon at Mom’s house, attempting to clean it out prior to selling it. It was like going into a time warp, extending back 5 decades and more. You see, not only was Mom a voracious reader, she felt almost a moral obligation to keep everything she read. Perhaps she wanted to refer back to it some day. Not only that, when my Aunt Ara and Uncle Arving passed on, she felt an obligation to keep many of their books also. Interesting tomes such as a directory of all lawyers specializing in transportation issues in the state of Texas in 1938. And so on. As a result my mother and father had this pressing need to somehow store all these volumes that had accumulated over the years. My dad, who I think secretly wanted to be a welder, constructed a huge “bookshelf” in the hall of their home. I say “bookshelf” because that word doesn’t adequately describe it. It was more like a miniature of the World Trade Center lying on its side. All the supporting elements are made out of iron bars that have been carefully welded together. I have no idea how long it took him to make this work of art, and even less of an idea how he got it from his workshop into the hallway. Of all the items in the house, this is the only one that the realtor specified, “it has to go.” And so I am left with the task, not only of clearing all the books from the shelves, but dismantling the ironwork as well. As I finally found away to remove one of the wooden shelves screwed to the metal works, and carried it out back to the workshop, I pictured in my mind what a sense of pride that my dad must have felt when he carried it in the reverse direction. The last shelf to be placed in his pride and joy, the fruit of his long labor, and his act of love towards my mother to provide her with a way to store all her beloved books. And she would have interpreted it in just this way—a gift of love from her husband of many years expressed in iron and wood instead of the words of affection that he had trouble speaking.
So it was with sadness that I began to deconstruct this symbol of my parents’ love for one another. Some day my own children will haul away the artifacts of love that Susan and I had for each other. Items with a history unknown to them—of great moment in our lives but totally indecipherable to theirs. The hundreds of books I gathered from Mom’s shelves were only worth $25 to the book dealer; yet to her, they had a value not calculable in the crude currency of commerce. She was the last of the great historians of our family, and these books reflect that deep interest and concern to preserve the memories of her ancestors, and times simpler—and in her view no doubt better than our times.
One hundred years seems like a long time. Even 99 years and 4 months—the age at which my mother died—is a long time. Yet, as the psalmist puts it, man’s days are like grass. He (or she) flourishes like a flower of the field, but the wind passes over it and it is gone and its place knows it no more. In contrast the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him. He is the God of the living, not the dead. And so, though I cry along with the clouds on this rainy centenary of my mother’s birth at her absence from my life now, I know that these words of men that I discard off the soon-to-be-dismantled shelves will be replaced in glory by the eternal Word of the Lord which can never, no never, be erased.
Happy hundredth, Mom!