Altar Call – Opelika-Auburn News
Walter Albritton
May 11, 2014
My wife’s
inspiring tribute to her mother
Come
June first Dean Albritton will have been my wife for 62 years. She has been a
good mother to our children and a gracious grandmother to their children. As we
have grown old together I have realized more and more how Dean’s personality
was shaped by the mind and heart of her mother.
Sarah Brown lived into her 99th
year. Because of the death of her husband at age 46, Sarah lived in our home
many of the last 50 years of her life. After her death I began to realize and
become grateful for the lasting influence Sarah made in both our lives.
Since Sarah’s death Dean has blessed me a
hundred times by recalling and sharing the witty sayings of her mother. I
believe you will enjoy reading Dean’s delightful reflections about the lessons
she learned from her mom:
“My mother gave birth to me when she was 32
years old and she lived another 67 years. She influenced my life
greatly until her death at age 99.
“The
last words my mother spoke to me were words that summed up her life. A few days
before she died she said, ‘It sure is a beautiful day.’ I am profoundly
thankful that my mother left me a long list of wise words that have shaped my
life for good.
“As
we were driving away from the cemetery after burying my father, she said to me
and my sister, ‘With God’s help we will make it. He will make a way
for us. God is faithful.’ It
wasn’t until years later that I read in Isaiah 25 these words, ‘O Lord, you are
my God. You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy
in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the
heat. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.’
“During
the first months after daddy died we lived in a big old house. We were filled
with loneliness, sadness and fear. One night we heard footsteps
outside. The three of us were huddled together in one
bed. In the corner of the room stood my father’s World War I rifle,
an axe and a hammer. Now what we thought we would do with those weapons
I don’t know.
“With fear and trembling we eased to the
window and peeped out. What we saw plodding around the house was a very large
mule! The relief that came was like the lifting of a great weight. Mother
said, ‘God has not given us a spirit of fear. We cannot live in
fear.’ I learned later that this was what Paul said to Timothy (II
Tim. 1:3).
“The
sadness I felt from missing my daddy was overwhelming. Our house was
heated with coal and there was a coal bin outside the kitchen. This
was the perfect place for me to crawl in to hide so that I could cry without
anyone seeing me. One day I was in the coal bin when mother
kept calling for me. She opened the door to the coal bin and saw me sitting in
the corner. She pulled me out looking at me with a surprised
look. I will never forget her words. She said, ‘You need
to be out in the beautiful sunshine, not in a coal bin.’
“I
realized later that mother was determined to help me experience the awe of
life. She believed that idle hands were the devil’s workshop so she
gave me plenty of chores to do. My sister went to work at a beauty shop washing
hair. That left me to help mother can food from the garden she had
planted. I churned the milk that came from the cow that we had in a
barn in the back of the house. I went around the neighborhood
delivering the butter that mother sold. I cut the grass with a push
mower. When I forgot to put on my shoes mother yelled, ‘If you cut
off your toes, don’t come running to me for help.’
“Mother
left me one day to clean the kitchen while she went to town. I
thought this would be a good time to read a book. Before I knew it I
heard mother coming up the steps. I ran to the kitchen just in time
to see mother standing there with her hand on her hip and her blue eyes
shooting fire. ‘I thought I told you to clean the kitchen.’ I
sheepishly replied, ‘Mother, I meant to.’ Then came mother’s
priceless comment, ‘Meant to don’t pick no cotton.’ We both fell out
laughing.
“Then
mother started her marching program. She marched me to Margaret
Ruffin’s house to sign me up for piano lessons. She marched me to
Margaret Hogan’s office to sign me up for “Expression” lessons. Then
she marched me down the street to the home of Florence Gholson Bateman so she
could teach me how to sing.
“My
final marching orders came when she enrolled me in Girl Scouts. I
have never been athletic but I liked the uniform. On the day of the
first meeting, in marched Imogene Duffey. Right
away she said to the troupe, ‘Girls we are going to march to Bald Knob.’ It
is the highest hill around Wetumpka. I thought, ‘You have got to be
kidding!’
“The
next Saturday we all gathered at the foot of Bald Knob. ‘Girls this
is how we will march,’ she said. ‘Shoulders back! Stand
tall! Get ready! This is our marching song – I left, I
left, I left my wife and forty-eight children in starving condition, without
any Ginger Bread, think I did right, a right, a right, a right to my country by
jingle, I had a good job and I left, I left.’ Before we knew it we
had arrived on the top of Bald Knob.
“Did
all this teaching pay off? I am not so sure, but this much I know, I
came out into the sunshine of God’s beautiful world – through the steady
influence of my mother and the grace of a merciful heavenly Father.
“My
mother kept her dry wit until the end. One day when I was ironing
she came and sat down by the ironing board. She handed me her comb
and hair spray. Mother had long hair and wanted it put up in a
French twist. I did the best that I could do and then sprayed her
hair with hairspray. As she patted her hair, she said, ‘You know
this feels a little funny.’ Then I realized what I had
done. I had sprayed her hair with spray starch! ‘Oh Mother, I am so
sorry,’ I cried. With a twinkle in her eyes mother said, ‘Well, you
know it seems to be holding rather well. I think I might start using
spray starch.’
“Mother
lived almost a century. When the first cars came to her county, she
started driving at age 14. She drove for 75 years without an
accident. She saw the first airplane land in her county and lived to
fly in jet planes when her nephew, who worked for Eastern Airlines, paid for
her travel. She could wring the neck of a chicken in one twist and
bait a hook with a worm without batting an eye when she wanted to fish. She
could milk a cow. She worked in her many gardens and grew beautiful
flowers.
“Mother passed the Civil
Service exam with flying colors and worked until she was 65. She
later said, ‘If I had known I was going to live so long I would have worked
another ten years.’ She prepaid the expense of her funeral, bought a
very plain casket and threatened to come back to haunt us if we changed to a
more expensive casket.
“I
conclude with a story that happened when mother was 80 years old. On
a bright spring day I drove my mother, my 54 year-old-sister who had just had
radical breast surgery because of cancer, and my two-year-old granddaughter to
Oak Park in Montgomery for a picnic. I told them to enjoy the park
while I put our food on the table.
“A little while later I
went looking for them. What I saw that day will stay in my mind as
long as I live. The three of them were each swinging in a
swing, going as high as they could go and laughing with great joy. I
think I heard the angels singing that day saying, ‘It sure is a beautiful day!’ And
for me, it truly was a beautiful day!” + + +