She was born 84 years ago, in a remote West Virginia town straddling the narrow valley of Guyandotte River.  The poverty that existed then in that part of Appalachia is almost incomprehensible today, when even in the midst of a terrible recession we think nothing of driving a car to the nearest supermarket or Target for necessities that would have been untouchable luxuries in an early twentieth century coal mining town.

Even though her family was poor, she was very fortunate.  She knew it, too.  Her father did not have to rise early each morning to venture deep underground into the mines like the parents of most of her friends.  Her mother and father were both educated, and her father had even received a degree from the teacher’s college across the state line in Kentucky.  Both parents taught in one-room schools, although her mother quit as soon as she married.  Married women rarely taught in those days.  Few men did, either, married or not.  That fact did not deter her father, however.  He knew that education was the key to ending the cycle of poverty and violence that had cursed this beautiful landscape for generations.  That love of learning remained with him his entire life, and he had no greater joy than to instill that passion onto his children, and onto the other boys and girls who entered his classroom.  Young boys and girls whose fathers worked long, dangerous hours at barely subsistence wages to extract the fuel that powered America’s Industrial Revolution. 

Her parents were strict.  She hardly ever spent time alone with any of the boys in town, even though her older brothers were known as “players” in that regard.  The expectations parents held for “good” girls were very different than what was expected of their sons.  For a long time, her father would not even allow her to go to the high school football games.  Maybe that stemmed back to the time someone from another town came into her father’s office (by now he was the principal in a larger school), laid a pistol on his desk, and said his school would lose the next game, right? 

When she graduated from high school – an accomplishment that was still exceptional for an attractive girl in that part of the country – she left home with her parents’ consent to continue her education at Mary Washington College, a full day’s drive away.  She left early one autumn day in 1942 and never looked back.  Eventually, she moved out to Texas, where she caught the eye of a shy young bookish professor.  They had a few awkward dates, but when summer arrived she decided to go back to West Virginia to spend time with her parents, and with her brother, who was going through a very difficult and painful time in his life.  While there, she received a marriage proposal from an old romantic interest.  She returned to Texas and told the young professor that she was engaged.  However, seeing the professor again instilled within her doubts about her decision.  Before long her engagement to one suitor came to an end, replaced by an engagement to another, the shy young professor who was not so shy that he could not make his feelings known.  A year later, she and her professor husband were expecting the first of three children they would have together.

She would live in Texas the rest of her life.  She came to love her adopted state, and especially the home she had made in it for herself and for her family.  Her children were the focus of her life.  She loved to sing, and when the children were small she would sit with them at the piano and together they would sing her favorite hymns.  She had a beautiful voice, and the music director at the church frequently lobbied for her to join the choir.  She always refused, though, because she wanted to be with her children during the service.  That love of music had a tremendous impact.  Her oldest child became an accomplished musician himself, and he often looked back on those times spent with his mother as the source of his own musical passion.   Her other son, the youngest, remembers those Christmas Eves, when the family would gather around the piano to sing Christmas carols.  At the time, the boy was embarrassed at the possibility one of his friends might hear them.  Now, 40 years later, it is one of his fondest childhood memories. 

Eventually, all but the youngest child moved away to begin their own adult lives.  But the house was not quiet.  Nearly every Sunday she would invite single men and women from the church for dinner, a veritable feast for young, or not so young, adults who still longed for the comfort of a mother’s meal.  She considered her skill with food preparation a precious gift from God, and even quoted from the Book of Acts:  “They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.”  For her, those dinners shared with friends were occasions of unaffected joy.

The two oldest children were not out of the house long before that joy was dampened, however.  One spring evening, lying in a bed with her husband and youngest son by her side, a doctor walked into the room and said the words they all feared.  “It is malignant,” he said.  Thus began the four year struggle to kill the cells that were trying to kill her. 

During those difficult and painful years, her ravaged body bloated and weak, her thoughts were not of herself.  There was no self pity.  She kept a diary and wrote down her wishes for her loved ones after she was gone.  She composed a prayer, asking God to comfort her husband and find someone for him to love and who would love him.  She asked God to watch over her children, to guide them, and make them happy, productive men and women.  She asked God not to heal her, but to give her the strength to meet whatever fate He had assigned to her.

One day during the third year of her illness, the telephone rang.  It was her daughter, who lived nearly two-thousand miles away on the other end of the line.  “Guess what, Mom?  I’m pregnant!”  It was a joyous conversation.  But when she hung up the phone, she wept as she sat in her wheelchair.  Her husband asked what was wrong.  “I will never see that baby.  I will never see my grandchild,” she answered.

From that moment, the focus of her life changed.  Her goal was to live to see the baby.  With the approach of Christmas, she seemed to regain her strength.  She put the wheelchair aside, and even managed to get around without the walker.  Her youngest son came home for the Holidays with his college roommate, a Japanese exchange student.  Despite her illness, she was eager to share a real American Christmas with this young man from the other side of the globe.  If one did not know what had transpired during the previous three and a half years, one would have been astonished to learn that she was desperately ill and in great pain. 

Not long after that Christmas, a baby girl was born.  The woman had lived to become a grandmother.  Six weeks later, the daughter brought the baby to meet her.  The visit lasted four or five days, a time of great happiness for the entire family.  The woman had accomplished her goal; she had seen her granddaughter. 

The young mother and baby left on Sunday to return to their own home.  Two days later, the woman was rushed to the hospital as her health began its final, painful descent.  She fell in and out of consciousness for another six weeks, and through a morphine induced haze could occasionally carry on a brief conversation.  But the inevitable could not be put off any longer.  She called each of her three children and met with them in private.  She said her goodbyes.  Soon she was gone.

All of her children miss her still.  They wish she had not died while the youngest son was still in college.  They are glad she saw her granddaughter, though.  She would be proud of her.  The baby is an adult now, a bright and dedicated environmental scientist.  She is working to make our planet cleaner and safer.  A planet, perhaps, that will have less toxins in it that make people die before they should.

She would be proud of all of her children.  The incredibly talented oldest son has retained that love of music she instilled in him so many years ago.  Her daughter has achieved great professional success, with an important position that enables her to make a real and positive impact on society.   Her youngest son has a family of his own now, and he still looks to his mother, and her husband, as role models as he tries to do what is best for those he loves.   

She has been gone nearly 30 years.  But she is not forgotten. 

Happy birthday, Mom.  We miss you.