In the last three weeks, three of my friends have passed away. It makes one think of great questions in life and also practical ones. One was my next door neighbor and two were gentlemen from my church. They were wonderful people in such divergent ways.
Eugenia Carnes Wiseman was my neighbor. Before she and her daughter, Glenda, moved next door thirteen years ago, her mother, Henrietta Carnes was my neighbor. There have been Carnes next door to us for the past twenty-six years and I don't know what it's going to be like to not have a Carnes neighbor next to us. Mama Bill was always handy whenever I needed to run somewhere and needed a last minute baby sitter. She was a wonderful cook. We could expect some wonderful treat often from her kitchen. She walked everyday into her 90's, I could not keep up with her on the steep hills around our house. After Mama Bill passed away, her daughter, Eugenia, and her granddaughter, Glenda, came to keep us company. We have been blessed by their company. While we were in New York and Mississippi, Glenda fed our cats everyday. Now they live between their house and ours. Glenda is mentally handicapped. She is just a little older than me. It has been wonderful to have her as my neighbor these past years. It was always good to see her walking in the yard. If she came by and saw no food in the cats bowl she would come on the porch and go feed them. Sometimes she would be on the porch and we would come out in our underwear and be surprised that she was there!
The sad thing about Eugenia's death is that Glenda will have to move. She receives a small stipend from Social Security because of her handicap. Now there is not enough money for her to pay the expenses in the house and she will have to move to public housing. Glenda misses her mother and I'm sure she will miss our remaining shared cat. One of our cats was killed last week and she was devastated. She kept saying it was terrible to lose her mother and her second favorite cat in one week. We had a funeral for the cat and invited Glenda to attend. We stood around the grave and told stories about Spot. Glenda told about Casey and Spot killing a copperhead a couple of weeks ago in their yard. She was convinced that they were protecting her and her mother. Glenda will live by herself in the high rise. She is capable of cooking, riding the bus, and is an excellent house keeper. She will be fine, but I will miss her so, so much. It will be hard not to see her everyday, in the yard or on our back porch.
Kenneth Stipe and his wife, Bobbye, were some of the first people I met when we moved to Rome. We started a new Sunday School class at North Rome Methodist twenty-six years ago. I have known them exactly half my life. They adopted us as part of their family. They have been like parents to me and Freddy and grandparents to Nicole. We have always had chili and cornbread on Halloween night until the last few years. Freddy had seven surgeries on his foot beginning when Nicole was in kindergarden and through the third grade. Bobbye and Kenneth kept Nicole several times through those years so she could go to school and not have to stay with my family in Alabama and miss school. Kenneth was the world champion hugger. He would fold one in his arms and gently give the best hugs ever. He was always in a good mood and always had a smile on his face. Once, Bobbye told him Leigh needed a whipping. He took her to her room, pulled of his belt and told her to hollar every time he swung the belt. Bobbye thought he was killing Leigh and she came up and caught him in the act of beating the bed to death! He was too gentle to whip Leigh. He was firm when he needed to be, but I only ever saw his gentleness.
Kenneth's funeral was a testament to a life well spent. Steve Story and Barbara Davis performed the service and his son, Ken Stipe did the best eulogy I've ever heard. He read things he had written down about his daddy through the years, he read letters from Kenneth's daughter, Leigh, and his son-in-law, Mark. They talked about how wonderful, kind, and gentle he was. Freddy, my husband, did the music. He played the guitar and led us in singing "How Great Thou Art." He sang a song he wrote, "When Flowers Bloom." Kenneth always loved it when Freddy sang in church. He especially loved it when he would sing something he wrote accompanying himself on the guitar. After Ken's loving eulogy, Freddy sang "Ave Maria" a cappella. It was probably the hardest thing he had ever done. We laughed and cried, cried and laughed and Freddy had to hold his composure which he did admirably.
It seems strange to me that we have to compress a person's life to an hour. We try to boil their life down to it's essence. I guess most of the time we manage pretty well, after all funerals are for the living, not the person who has gone on to another plane. I think that if we are remembered, we are still alive in another's heart. I hope one day that most people that have known me in life will remember me fondly. I will remember these three people for as long as I live because they made an impression on me in some way. I will remember you Eugenia, Kenneth, and George. I will remember you while I am Living Life...
