Good Like a Medicine

After several weeks of delay, I am attempting to put together my thoughts for myself and for you concerning our Nanny who went to be with the Lord in December. I hope you got acquainted a bit with Papa, and now I trust you will enjoy personal memories or delight in an another’s recollection of this person we call “Nanny.”

The following passage from the Bible is worth reading before I share anything else with you:

Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled; for fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU,” so that we confidently say, “THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?” (Hebrews 13)

I almost wept the first time I read this after Nanny’s death. You should know that she religiously embodied these instructions, perhaps without even realizing it at times. The reason wasn’t for self-actualization or vain glory; she simply wanted to follow her Lord. Life was pretty simple for Nanny.

She married very young, which wasn’t rare for women in her generation. Anyone who knows their history knows that she was reared through a youth of hard times, and change was definite. From everything she ever told me I gather that her life was a simplistic devotion to loving those she loved and working for what was right despite whatever came her way. Much wisdom was bound up behind her beautifully large eyes and much love within her big heart.

When Eric and I got married, I took an interest in quilting. The honest truth is I had no idea whatsoever that Nanny was a “quilter extraordinaire.” After my parents bought me my first sewing machine and I spent a few months of digging my nose in fabrics and books, I came to Nanny and she deliberately took time to show me the basics. I don’t know what to say about Nanny and her crafts. She basically lived through the thousands of creations she made to give away to other people. She made things for so many years for people who would appreciate a kind, southern charm of hospitality. She made us a wedding quilt, made Lydia a baby quilt, and had just finished a quilt for Steven when she died. She was always working on a new project. The very last thing she did with her hands before she died was tuck her needle into a quilt. I suspect she’s working on something right now (oh, to behold such glorified art)! I wish she could have seen the first quilts I made here in Florida because there is part of her in them, too. I believe true heirlooms have their lasting value when the loved one’s heart is wrapped up in them, and I know anyone who ever received any gift from Nanny cherishes the love that helped her make it.

Nanny was always doing something for someone. Idle would never be a word to describe any part of her being. She has probably befriended Martha in heaven, and I bet they are already the best of friends. From the moment she arose each day until she went to sleep, she was doing, and usually it was fulfilling some challenge to help another person. She had her priorities, and they were apparent to everyone close to her. First was her husband, then her children and extended family, and next was her church. That was a funny word for Nanny: church. You see, the church was anyone near her with the potential for being loved, for being helped. (I guess it should be that for us all.) Her love took different forms according to other people’s needs, but she would not turn anyone away. Everyone was welcomed into her home. Unlike some of us, Nanny was never scared to help someone. Personally Nanny’s help to me often looked like a diaper change for one of our babies and a plate of food with a particularly heavy portion of fried okra. Oh, how I loved her okra (and no, it wasn’t because it was healthy)! I cry because I’ll miss it and also because I’ll never find anyone who even comes close to duplicating her way of preparing it. When I walked through her kitchen, she always smiled and hugged me, usually wiping her eyes because her heart ached that we recently moved away from our town and didn’t see her as much. The greetings, however, usually didn’t last but a second. There was too much work to do. “Gimme that baby,” she’d say to us, in her sweet but bossy kind of way. If you didn’t hand over the baby right away, you’d get a look from her like, “What are you doing? Don’t you know help when you see it?!” (Everyone knows she was pretending like she wanted to help us with the babies, and honestly she just wanted to steal them away to attack them with hugs and kisses!) Sometimes she would just pat me on the back and say, “Go eat.” What could I do except do what she asked?! She was this way up until the hours of her departure from this earth. My pregnant sister-in-law Amanda went by the house to check on Papa and Nanny the day they died because the power was out in the region due to an ice storm and because everyone knew they had not been feeling well lately. Nanny assured her that they were doing just fine and cooked up some pork chops and beans on her heater and served them right there in the dark. Amazing.

Eric and I were serving in a college ministry after we were married, but we couldn’t move into our apartment until two months after the wedding. We got back from our honeymoon and moved into the “Little House,” the place behind Papa and Nanny’s house on their property. I think we were the third or fourth newlywed couple in the family to stay in that little one bedroom, one bath house with a kitchen. It used to be Nanny’s beauty shop, and Eric and I had our share of fun and funny memories living in there. We even invited all of our friends over a few times, and Papa and Nanny never complained about all of the cars. One of our first arguments consisted of me whining about how I was offended that Nanny came in and tidied up, folded and ironed our clothes, and put ketchup and mustard in the fridge for us while we were gone. I complained, “But honey, I’m your wife! Doesn’t she comprehend that I am capable, and I’m the one who needs to fold your underwear?” Eric gently hugged me, smiled, and said, “Yes. Honey, she’s Nanny. Just let her be Nanny.” And so I did, and from that point on I just chuckled every time his boxer shorts wound up on the foot of our bed, neatly pressed and stacked. I was just another child for her to love by serving, and truly any person we brought into her home was another child to her. I’m running my point in the ground, but our family knows I’m not exaggerating. She was a servant. You came first, and she came last. Always. There was nothing unfamiliar about sacrifice to her.

Everyone loved to hear Nanny’s laugh. It was like a waterfall with big, hearty bubbles springing at the bottom. She literally sprayed her glasses with her gushing tears when she laughed, and my husband loves to talk of Nanny “wiping her eyes” with a Kleenex every time someone said something funny. She kept a Kleenex in her pocket always, and I bet Papa made her laugh so many times that we never saw when they were alone. If Papa picked on her or made her laugh, she would walk past him and say, “GeORGE!” and we would all burst out laughing. They were adorable to watch and to love.

I have many more memories of Nanny that I can’t begin to record. I know I’m not alone. The most significant attributes of her character, however, will remain ingrained in my mind. You were loved by Nanny simply because you were a person made in the image of God. You were a child to her because you had a soul and the need to be loved. On the day Nanny was killed, the devotion book Journey for Women set clearly opened on the kitchen table. It was by no coincidence turned to these words following a missionary’s story of being held at gun point and having her faith tested: Jesus, I am going to die now. Am I ready to go and be with you? The next paragraph began, “Are you ready? If you found yourself in a potentially deadly situation, would you feel prepared to die?” I believe Nanny answered that question in her heart that morning with affirmation. I have pondered her disturbing and horrible death many times, and the way I have decided to remember Nanny’s death is only fitting for her. She died serving her firstborn child, protecting her, and sacrificing for her the most valuable possession she had to give: her very life. Nothing and no one was going to stop her from fulfilling her act of duty. There are crowns in heaven for these types of servants, and I know Jesus was ready to bring her in to receive his glory. “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17,18). I am convinced that finally now Nanny is resting in the arms of her Father, and for a change, she has been served by the sweet orders of the King of Kings at the ultimate Feast. She is being told to sit down, to “go eat,” and boy, I bet the okra is good.