I've Been Thinking About This…

This turned up in Snopes today – an obituary written by the woman’s daughter:

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. Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But 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.

Wow! What a burn! This woman (who died 2 weeks ago at the age of 79) had 9 children, 19 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren. The obituary is real (check the background in the link above). Difficult though it is to raise 9 children, somewhere you’d have thought there would be some joy to be found. It’s hard to remain unaffected in the face of 49 little children across 3 generations. I mean, they may be an unwitting pain at times, but they scatter love and joy with abandon. Removing joy from the lives of your children to this extent takes a lot of effort.

You give what you live. If you live a mean life, you give a lot of meanness. If you life a loving life, you give a lot of love. One of God’s gifts in this area is that hurt is often forgiven, but love acts like glue to our hearts.

Which begs two questions:

1. What happened to her that she became that way? Who hurt her so very badly? Who gave her that life to live?
2. How would you like to be remembered? Are you living and giving in the way that will beget those memories?

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