Grandma and Pa Bill - 6/28/1980
I am grateful to God that the two people who gave me life, my mother and father, are both alive and well, and are a part of my life. However—as I think most of you know—I never lived with my biological parents, who both were teenagers at the time of my birth. In fact, I did not meet my father until 7 years ago. As God in His sovereign will would have it, I ended up being raised by my maternal great-grandparents (specifically, my maternal grandfather’s mother and step-father), William and Minnie Duncan Gray—“Pa Bill” and “Grandma,” with whom I lived until their deaths in 1989 and 1986.
On this Mother’s Day, I
specifically want to pay tribute to Grandma.
For all intents and purposes, she was my mother. Granted, Grandma did not give birth to me, but
she did raise me and care for me—all the way into adulthood. Like a mother, she made sure I was fed each
day. When I was sick, it was Grandma who
nursed me back to health. Whether I
suffered skinned knees or hurt feelings, it was Grandma who soothed the pain. In many ways, Grandma was the ideal mother.
There are many stories that come
to mind, many examples of how she nurtured me.
If I were to take the time to write them out in full, I probably could
come up with enough print to fill a book of several chapters. Just thinking about some examples of her
tenderness brings tears to my eyes some 40-plus years after the fact. Remembering laughs we shared decades ago
still make me smile today. I don’t
exaggerate when I say that I don’t know of anyone who seemed to be such a
perfect balance of love, tenderness, calmness and self-discipline.
To this day, I remain amazed at
Grandma’s personal discipline. The
amount of housework she could accomplish in a day, while also maintaining her
business schedule as a hairdresser until she was 80 (she maintained a beauty
shop in the basement of our home), was simply amazing. Never rushed, never stressed-out, yet always
on time, always finishing what she set out to accomplish.
And Grandma was blessed with wisdom. In all honesty, I believe Grandma may have
been one of the wisest persons I’ve ever known.
She seemed to always be able to correctly assess people and situations, always
know the right thing to do or say. She
wasn’t a gossip. She wasn’t a
flatterer. She wasn’t proud—didn’t think
more highly of herself than others. She
wasn’t domineering; neither was she a push-over. Grandma was humble, down-to-earth,
plain-speaking, and wise. Now, as I near
the end of my fifth decade of life, I know that part of her wisdom came from just
living. You see, Grandma was almost 67
when I came to live with her and Pa Bill.
That means I was the blessed recipient of the wisdom of her senior
years. But, another source of Grandma’s
wisdom was the Bible.
You see, Grandma was a real
Christian. By that I mean she had been
born again, having professed personal faith in Christ as a teenager, in 1913
(September 19, 1913, on the “mourner’s bench” at Oak Grove A.M.E. Church
in Florence, Alabama, to be exact).
Whether it happened then or later, it was evident to me that somewhere
along the road of life she had come to personally know the Lord. She was not perfect, but she lived a
consistent Christian life. She wasn’t
highly-educated (only completed 8th grade), but she was biblically
literate, reading a portion of her Bible every day (Scofield Reference Bible,
King James Version, of course).
A fond memory is that of seeing
Grandma sitting in her bedroom (the simple wooden chair in which she sat sits
beside my desk right now as I type), or in the living room of our house, reading
God’s word. Her example would put most
of us church folks to shame because, without benefit of a reading plan or
accountability partner, Grandma would read through the entire Bible, from
Genesis through Revelation. She didn’t
feel the need to read the Bible in a year—she was in no hurry—she would just
start at Genesis and read a portion each day until she finished
Revelation. Then, she would go back to
Genesis and start all over. By that
method, I believe she managed to read through the entire Bible several times.
I believe that it was,
ultimately, because of her faith in Christ that Grandma was the wonderful
mother that she was. By her words and
example, she kept before me the reality of God the Father and Jesus Christ His
Son. In fact, she was my first Bible
teacher, as she would explain to me the truths of God’s word as I sat at her
knee. I believe that I am a Christian
today at least partly because of the spiritual seeds she planted in my life.
Grandma also demonstrated what a
wife’s godly submission to her husband should look like. I don’t remember ever hearing Grandma discuss
the subject of submission, but I watch how she and Pa Bill interacted. In many ways, he was dependent upon her. She was smarter than he was (he only
completed the 6th grade), could read much better than he could, but
she never embarrassed him or talked down to him or made him feel inferior. In fact, there were several small ways she
never called attention to (but that I observed) in which she used her abilities
to help Pa Bill take the lead in the family.
She was not a “doormat” by any means, but she wasn’t a feminist,
either. She was a strong woman who didn’t
feel the need to dominate a man in order to prove her worth as a woman. I watched that. I learned from that. And when, much later, I learned what the
Bible had to say about the husband and wife’s roles in the family, I realized
that Pa Bill and Grandma had been living that out in front of me all along. Grandma showed me what to look for in a wife.
It is amazing how, in hindsight, we can sometimes clearly
see the providential hand of God in our lives.
Looking back, I see that God so arranged that I be raised and nurtured
by Grandma and Pa Bill so that I could be saved, because He wanted me as His
own.
So, on this Mother’s Day, I want
to pay tribute to the one who was mother to me.
“Happy Mother’s Day,” Grandma. I miss
you, but look forward to seeing you again, one day, in the presence of our Lord
and Savior.
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