A lesson worth remembering from the one who modeled it

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Just recently, her family and many friends laid to rest my Aunt Rachel.

She was 95, the last of a group of 12 brothers and sisters, including my mama, born to Grover and Verdonia Cooper of Bynum. It had been 13 years since the passing of the next to the last of that group to cross the Great Divide.

During those years, and indeed many before, that group of folks was both pleasure and inspiration to their children — my cousins and two brothers and me.

Beyond our own individual personal concerns, that big family was our life. Sunday afternoon visits and school and summer activities were where we lived. Wherever we wound up at suppertime on Sundays was where we’d eat, adding a cup of water to the soup or frying another chicken or making a fresh pan of biscuits. The adults talked of people, places, things and events we children knew little or nothing about while we little folks played and fussed and fought.

Then we grew up and that sibling group began to age. At the same time, we cousins had begun jobs and careers and marriages and families of our own. Times together became less frequent. It wasn’t on purpose; nobody was angry; it just happened. Still, from time to time, there would be gatherings, especially an annual event the Friday after Thanksgiving Day. Those were always good.

As the calendar began to turn pages, we began to lose the folks in that group of 12, them and their husbands and wives. The first was in 1972, the last earlier this month, a period covering 51 years.

Where did the time go? 51 years! Now they’re all gone and we cousins are left with memories, something not all our own children know since many of that generation weren’t on the scene yet.

But there’s a great lesson in here, namely that we should share — tell and show — the characteristics we saw lived out, modeled before us. Our last aunt, for instance, was kind and loving and generous, a legend of sorts in her hometown. She shared her home, her skills in the kitchen and as a seamstress, even herself with warm hugs and a verbal reminder “I love you.” None of us ever doubted that. For a time, her telephone answering machine carried the message at the end, “Remember, Jesus loves you and I do, too.” There have been times in my life when I’d call her and finding out she wasn’t home that I would call back just to hear her sweet voice with that sweet message.

For several years, she had told me, “When I die, I want you to do my funeral.” I’d fuss at her, tell her not to make any plans or to think of something I could say. Then the other day happened and it was an honor to speak a few words on that occasion.

There was not a shortage of material, quite the contrary. I spoke of her life, her faith, her love of community and church and all that makes up a life well-lived. But in the days before the service, as I thought of what to say, it dawned on me that perhaps the most significant characteristic of her life was a goal I think we all should have: She was content, no matter what.

Numbers of people had heard her say something to the effect, “I’ve had a good life. If I die tomorrow, I’m not worried. I know where I’m going. If I had sat down to write a script for my life, I couldn’t have written a better one.” This was from a woman who lost a young grandson to cancer in the 1970s, her husband 27 years ago and an adult daughter a few years ago to the ravages of memory loss. In addition, she was suffering from various physical ailments of her own, including heart distress and vision loss. Still, she kept going out to eat, especially with a group of her peers on an almost-daily basis.

As I thought about all that, it dawned on me she was content for three reasons and in those three areas was the key — and it’s not a secret — to her contentment.

First of all, she was content with what she had — food, clothing, shelter, family and friends. Secondly, she didn’t major on what she didn’t have. She lived a comfortable life but never did she make material items her god. And lastly, she understood that all she had was a gift from God.

It strikes me that if I — and maybe you — can learn that, we, too, can be content when the curtain closes on our earthly existence. Every human being has an influence of some kind on other human beings. I’m glad this human — my aunt — had such a positive one. If you’ve got a positive example in your life, follow it and tell them so. And resolve to not only learn from it but also to live it.

Bob Wachs is a native of Chatham County and retired long-time managing editor of the Chatham News/Chatham Record, having written a weekly column for more than 30 years. During most of his time with the newspapers, he was also a bi-vocational pastor and today serves Bear Creek Baptist Church for the second time as pastor.