September 16, 2008: Epitaph

While visiting Gordon's church last week I received a shock when the Sunday School paper was handed out. It included an essay on Proverbs that my mother wrote years ago! Gordon had me read it aloud, which I could barely do for the emotion. I was one of the examples in it. Mom wrote, "My little boy once protested, 'A whole dime for a torn comic book? You're nuts!' But as soon as the salesman was out of earshot, Paul gloated about his bargain, 'I really got a good buy for only a dime.'" She cited Proverbs 20:14: "'It's no good, it's no good!'" says the buyer; then off he goes and boasts about his purchase." I can still see her smiling and hear her quoting that verse in the King James: "'It is naught, it is naught,'" saith the buyer; but when he goeth his way, he boasteth."

After I finished reading the essay, Gordon said, "I would have really liked your mom." I said, "Everyone did."

I thank God for my maternal legacy. The joy of it, though, is crashing hard these days against the sorrow I feel for those who never experience it. Even as I pen these words, I sit literally six feet away from a young man whose alcoholic mother abandoned him - and his brother, and his father. Two other young friends of mine saw their mother convert from devout Christianity to a "religion" that might be called "Bible-Hating Narcissism." While writing the above line (I'm not kidding! You can't make this up!) a friend called, and in the course of conversation told me that he too was estranged from his mother. When he was young, he said, among other cruelties his mom constantly told his friends that he was the black sheep of the family. "And I was a B+ student who never got in trouble!" he said, and I believe him.

On August 16 and 17 the following obituary appeared in the Vallejo (California) Times-Herald.

Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing... I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother... There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

Sadly, the obituary above is authentic. (You can look it up on Snopes.com). It has lit up the internet because of its brutal honesty and also because it has struck a chord with thousands who, like the author, were left "completely terrorized."

You have no idea how many moms (and dads too of course - but here I'm just focusing on moms) I'd like to wake up and in whose ears I'd like to shout, "What is the matter with you? Trust God and behave well! Don't you know that some day your children will grow up and evaluate you? And that, if they are worthy, they won't care if you made money, or kept yourself thin, or accomplished much, or had fun, or lived a life of self-fulfillment; but they will care whether you were kind and pure and did good to others?"

When I emailed an old friend about my extraordinary experience in Sunday School, he emailed back, "Your mom is one of my all-time favorite human beings of all time." Outside of God's approval, who could hope for a better evaluation than that? No fortune gathered from all the treasuries in the world could buy it. As Solomon said, "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold." (Proverbs 22:1).