My mother passed away last Tuesday, July 22. We held a memorial service, yesterday, August 2. I have mentioned that mom was a most amazing woman and mother. Here is one of the stories that was shared yesterday. --------------- ON BEING FOUND … When our family lived in Sloan, Iowa the year before I was to start Kindergarten I took part in an experiment of sorts. The school district in Sloan, like so many rural towns in Iowa was united and shared their school buildings with several other towns. The School building in Sloan was the high school building and the elementary school was in a neighboring town called Hornick. Since so many children had to be bussed back and forth between the various towns the school system thought it would be a good idea to give the kids a head start. In fact, that was the programs name. For two weeks at the beginning of school we rode the bus to the elementary school building and experienced school for the first half of the day. I got into the habit of walking to the bus stop at the high school, rode the bus to the elementary school, experienced reading, and art, and then rode the bus back to the high school and walked home. The walk home was really quite easy because I knew that I had to turn left from where the bus dropped us off and walk straight until I saw the church that my dad was pastor at. The parsonage sat right next to the church and so I would then be home. Mom would have lunch ready for me and I would eat lunch and then take my afternoon nap. As I mentioned this continued for two weeks. But the last time that we were let off, the bus driver stop the bus stood up and told us that he was letting us off on the other side of the street because of something happening at the school. And so he opened the door and we all started filing out and I turned left as I got off the bus, just as I always did. Soon everyone had headed their way to home and I was well on my way, or at least I thought I was, until everything around me looked wrong. Ok, no problem, I will simply turn back around and head back to the high school and figure out where I need to go from there. Which I did. And so I started walking the opposite direction. The more I walked the more everything looked more wrong. I was lost. I was scared. And I didnt know what else to do. So I sat down on the ground and started to cry. I dont know how long I sat there. But I remember lifting my head at one point and seeing, through tear blurred eyes, someone walking towards me. Now, I was not only lost and frightened because I didnt know where I was at, I was also scared because I really couldnt tell who was walking towards me. And I cried even more. And just then the person came up to me and picked me up and hugged me and held me and I knew that mom had found me. I stopped crying. she told me that she loved me and that I was safe and found and she was worried about me and I didnt need to be afraid any longer because she was there. This is one of my most powerful memories of my mother.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 16:25:52 +0000