CHRIST
IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Today we are going home,
to where I went to public school, to celebrate the 108 years of life of Donna
Miller’s mother, Ophia, at the Corn Colvin Funeral Home, where our classmate,
Jarvis Reed, grew up, when it was the Corn & Reed Home, and where my little
sister’s classmates, Darrel & Butch Corn, grew up, and where we also
celebrated the lives of both my parents.
There are a lot of
memories carried in all those names I just mentioned, and with death, almost
all those memories are lost. No one had more memories than Ophia. You get a lot
of them in 108 years. But I want to say something to remember a devoted
daughter, and I think I can do it best by reprinting the following CIW from
Feb. 5, 2013:
WE DON’T SAY NO TO DONNA
The package contained
ELEVEN tubes of toothpaste. With a note that said, “Donna will call you and
explain.”
There were supposed to be
only FIVE. And that was only because we overpaid last time. I am old. I don’t
even buy green bananas. How am I doing to use up eleven tubes of toothpaste
before I die? [1]
Donna was my high school
classmate. She is a distributor for Forever Bright™ toothpaste. We buy from her
because a long time ago she asked us to. We don’t say “no” to Donna.
She did call to explain.
She owed us five tubes from our previous overpayment and tried to get the
company to send them directly to us. She doesn’t have much time for boxing up
out-of-town orders. Her mother is well over a hundred years and in a nursing
home. Donna slept on a mattress on the floor of her room until her back got so
bad she had to have surgery. Now she sleeps at home but spends most of her
daytime hours at the nursing home. So why not get headquarters to send directly
to us? But apparently eleven is the minimum to mail to a separate address. Who
knows why? If 13 is a baker’s dozen, perhaps 11 is a dentist’s dozen.
I knew Donna in school, of
course, but not well. We had a class of only 62, and I was class president for
3 years. But we didn’t run in the same social circles. I was high in the work
circle of the class and school—class president, Student Council officer,
newspaper editor, orchestra bassoonist—but I was not high in the power
structure, which was based mostly on money and family, or the social structure,
which was based mostly on looks and clothes. [1] Donna was high in the social
structure; she was Homecoming Queen.
We expected a high society
life for her after school, of course. It didn’t turn out that way. Her first
husband divorced her, her second committed suicide. Her two sons died in their
twenties, one of cancer and the other in a motorcycle accident. Her only
grandchild, Jada, either committed suicide or was murdered in Donna’s house, at
the age of 19. Her only family now is her mother and two sisters, one deep into
Alzheimer’s, and the other living in a different state and unable to walk.
Donna takes care of her mother and sells toothpaste. [3]
Except, Donna makes a life
out of nothing. She knows everybody and she knows their stories. Helen says one
of the best times she ever had was when we went to lunch with Donna when we
were back in Oakland City for our 55 year reunion. She introduced us to
everyone in the restaurant, including the pig farmer who was, thankfully,
getting take-out and whose clothes were splattered with what Helen devoutly
hoped was mud. Young or old or in-between, Donna knew them all, and later she
explained why each one needed her special attention, although she didn’t put it
that way, because of the difficulties of their lives. We’ve been with her
several times through the years at nursing homes. She goes in like a swarm of
laughing bees on a summer day, landing on every worker and every patient with a
hug and a smile and a “How are you, Sweetie?” And besides, who can’t love a
woman in her 70s who is a backup dancer/singer for an Elvis impersonator?
She’s still in the social
circle, but she’s in the work circle now, too. She was telling us about how
some sorority she belongs to was doing a benefit for some burned-out family or
good cause or… I’m not quite sure because it’s hard to stay up with Donna. They
were trying to get 25 people to sponsor it at $100 each so they could pay the
band and then all the money they raised would go to the good cause. Turns out
sponsors got 4 free tickets. Donna found some young married folks who wanted to
go but couldn’t afford it and told them, “Pick up tickets at the window. Just
tell them you are named McFarland.” We don’t say “no” to Donna.
We decided a long time ago
to stop going back for class reunions. 700 miles is just too far away. [4] But
through the years we’ve become a talisman for Donna. When it came time for our
50 year reunion, she called and asked us to come. “Everyone will tell about how
long they’ve been married, and about their children and grandchildren, and I
won’t have anything to say. But I think I can make it through if I can sit
between you and Helen.” When it was 55 years, she called and said, “I’ve got to
have back surgery the Monday after. I think I can make it through if I can see
you first.” We don’t say “no” to Donna.
Helen wrote the following
on Jan. 13: So last night I was lying awake in bed, and this morning when I
first awoke, I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. Nothing specific—just
mid-winter blahs. Seemed like there are so many wrong with the world, and in
the lives of people I care about, and in my own diminishing abilities to think
and work and affect my world. Just feeling kind of down. I prayed about it,
asking God for guidance and direction And what does he do?? Before I finished
breakfast, he tapped Donna on the shoulder and said, “Call McFarlands—and be
sure you talk to Helen, not just John.” {After Donna and I had talked, she
said, “Does Helen have anything she wants to say to me?} Donna!! Of all the
people I’ve ever known, Donna is probably the one who makes the most of what
she’s been given, stays upbeat when her world is falling apart [which it has
several times] and does the most good for the most people. God could have sent
any number of reasonably cheerful people into my life today and it would have
helped me on my way, but NO—He has to call out Donna—the BIG GUN! After we had
talked and I was cheered and inspired as I always am by her, I smiled and said,
“God, you really know how to send a message.”
So, we don’t say “no” to
Donna, but… do you need some toothpaste?
John Robert McFarland
I tweet as yooper1721.
Following are footnotes
from the Feb. 5, 2013 CIW. Notes from today’s post are below them:
1] I guess I could put the
toothpaste in my will. Daughter Katie looked up McFarland wills in the county
courthouse in Xenia, OH. One of my ancestors, Greene Clay McFarland, I think it
was, had willed a three-legged stool to the daughter “with a bad eye,” and “the
bucket without the hole” to another, etc. Eleven tubes of toothpaste might look
pretty good.
2] I experienced the
difference of work, power, and social circles primarily in the church, but most
groups of humans, and primates generally, are like high school. {Shudder!}
There is some overlap between the circles, but also some clear distinctions.
Below are footnotes from
today’s post:
3] Lorene, Donna’s
Alzheimer’s sister, has died.
4] Now it’s only 90 miles
to Oakland City, since we moved last May from Iron Mountain, MI to Bloomington,
IN. Bloomington is so well named at this time of year. Blooms everywhere! I
call Bloomington The Buckle on the Blossom Belt.
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