Altar
Call – Opelika-Auburn News
Walter
Albritton
May
12, 2013
Some mothers
know how to express love without using words
I have not kept count but I am sure I
have presided over a thousand funerals. Many of the deceased have been mothers.
So hundreds of times I have met with adult children to plan their mother’s
funeral service.
Usually these conversations with
family members occur the day after a person’s death. By then the family has
made arrangements for the burial with a funeral home. The day and time having
been set, I meet to discuss the funeral service itself and to learn what
scriptures, songs and remarks are to be included.
The wishes of the family seldom vary.
“Mama would not want a long funeral.” “We want it to be a celebration of her
life.” “We don’t want the service to be a tear-jerker.” “The pall bearers will
be her grandsons.”
Once we agree on the nature of the
service I invite the children to share ideas that I can use in writing an
appropriate eulogy. My goal is to prepare a succinct eulogy no more than 15
minutes long. I ask questions designed to evoke tender observations that will
be worth repeating. “Mama learned how to
knit after she turned 70 and everybody in the family has an afghan she made for
them.”
The great majority of children I have
interviewed had gracious things to say about their mother. Only once was this
not the case. Two brothers wanted to bury their mother without a funeral
service. When the funeral director refused their request and called me in,
since I was the woman’s pastor, the two men defiantly said: “Say as few words
as you have to, preacher; we just want to get her in the ground and go home.” I was stunned. My only regret is that I did
not give the two men a tongue-lashing about their attitude toward the woman who
had given them birth.
Usually a mother’s children will praise
her for many virtues. “I remember many times when Mama knelt beside my bed and
prayed for me.” “She was always there
for us when we needed help.” “Mama denied herself many things so she could do
things for her children.” “Mama was quick to forgive; she never held a grudge
against anyone.” “Mama was a gifted
seamstress; she made all my clothes until I was grown.” “Mama was a great cook
and everybody in the family has several of her recipes.” “She was a praying
mother and God answered her prayers for all her children to get to know Jesus.”
One man said recently about his wife’s
mother: “She was a great Mama. There was nothing she could not do and nothing
she could not fix.” A daughter said about her Mama, “She was the most unselfish
person I have ever known.”
As I reflect on all the accolades
lavished upon mothers by their children one stands out above all the rest. It
has to do with sacrifice. Mothers at their best are willing to sacrifice their
own needs in order to meet the needs of their children. In a nutshell, they
know how to express genuine love without using words. And they find hundreds of
little ways to do this.
I think, for example, about my wife’s
mother. When she had cooked fried chicken for supper she always insisted on
eating the neck, never the choicest pieces. It finally dawned on me that she
could not possibly prefer to eat a chicken neck; it was just one more way she
was willing to make a small sacrifice for the family she loved. She was never
wealthy but I have seen her spend her last dollar to buy a small gift for one
of her grandchildren.
Some things are seldom learned when we
are young. I was a grown man with a family of my own before I began to realize
the sacrifices my mother had made for her children. The realization of Mama’s
sacrifices came to me as I began observing my own wife practice self-denial on
behalf of our children. Gradually there was born in me an enormous sense of
gratitude for the sacrifices my mother had made for me and for the same
sacrificial spirit I saw in the mother of my own children.
I still have time to thank my wife for
the sacrificial ways she has practiced love for our children. And on this
Mother’s Day I plan to tell her how much I admire her for the many ways I have
seen her express genuine love without using words.
I regret not having thanked my mother
for the many ways she put aside her own needs in order to provide opportunities
for me and my siblings. But then perhaps she knew it without my having said it.
After all, though the spoken words are precious, it is possible to express true
love without using words. The best mothers do it every day. + + +