Myrtle Waves Good-bye
May 27th 2008 01:44
She attended the little conservative Christian church in our small Wells County, Indiana, town of less than 300 population. She had always attended there, it seems.
It was in that little church that I bowed at the altar on March 8, 1959, and gave myself back to the One Who created me. It was the last Sunday that the pastor was serving. He would move on and let another pastor take the church from the next week. I remember it so very well in spite of the many years that have gone by between then and now.
Back to Myrtle, although she was old enough to be my grandmother, I felt close to her as a fellow Christian. She spent her days sitting in the little house on the gravel road, crocheting and entertaining any visitors who happened to come to see her. She was fairly heavy so she did not want to stand on her feet much. Her long hair, kept in a bun on the back of her head, surrounded a fat and wrinkled face with a big smile in the center of it.
The house where she lived actually belonged to her son, Charles. He usually lived there with her although there were times when he was elsewhere. I never asked where he was as it was none of my business. I guess her husband had died many years before I became acquainted with Myrtle. As to her son, he was well-known as one of the town drunks in the larger town about 3 miles away.
Myrtle was a quiet Christian. However, her Christian principles and values were clear to everyone in the area. I remember when the story spread about Charles bringing in a six-pack of beer and put it in her refrigerator, which was actually his refrigerator. He had brought it in during the late night hours when his mother was sleeping. In the morning, Myrtle found the beer, took it outside and put an axe through each of the cans. Later in the day, when Charles woke up, he quietly accepted the fact that he had done what he knew was unacceptable to his mother. Regardless of Charles' own life style, he had great respect for his mother and her religious outlook.
After I became a Christian in 1959, Charles showed the same degree of respect toward me whenever I would come over to mow Myrtle’s lawn or work in her garden. To the best of my knowledge, Charles never did decide to follow his mother’s example and ask Jesus to change his life. In fact, he later married Ruby, a woman he found at The Hoosier Bar in the next town. She, too, showed great respect for Myrtle as well as to me.
I really liked Charles and Ruby, maybe because of their relationship to Myrtle, my Christian good friend and mentor.
To the gist of my story now, Myrtle was faithful to the services at the church. She was always there on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Thursday evening prayer meetings. She never missed a night at any of the revival meetings which were usually held once per year for around two weeks.
One Sunday morning when Myrtle came into the church house, she had one eye closed. I and some others joked about her ‘winking’ at everyone, not realizing that she had experienced a stroke which caused her eyelid to not stay open. Being around twenty years old, I did not think of how my joking and the joking of others may make her uncomfortable. When we realized the reason for her ‘winking’, the joking stopped, and praying for her became a more common practice.
The eye problem persisted. Then, her speech became less clear after a few weeks. She sometimes talked about her time to leave Earth to go to Heaven. None of us really liked to think about that event which seemed more and more likely for our dear, saintly Myrtle.
As months came and went, Myrtle confided in close friends as well as her sister, Ione, that maybe she would not be able to talk when she would be on her deathbed. She told people that, if she could not talk at the time, she would try to wave good-bye whenever she saw Jesus coming to take her home.
Myrtle’s attendance at church became less regular. Her health kept her home, often in her bed in the little house that she shared with Charles and Ruby. Her bedroom was downstairs. Charles and Ruby slept in an upstairs bedroom.
I was not there when Myrtle’s homecoming day arrived. Ione and others who were with Mame (Myrtle) told me about it. She was on her bed, not really able to communicate much. Of course, her eyes were closed. A slight smile formed on her withered old face. Her arms were at her side with the palms of her hands facing upward. In a while, the fingers of one hand began to move. It was obviously her agreed-upon sign that Jesus had come for her.
Through tears, the bystanders witnessed the homegoing of one of God’s saints. They cried at the loss of a dear Christian friend, but some of their tears may have been at the victory that Myrtle had won. She had made it into Heaven.
Before the funeral, Myrtle’s sister Ione penned a poem which was read at the funeral service. Although Myrtle had been waving good-bye, it appeared to Ione that the moving fingers were also beckoning people to “come”. The open palms facing upward had changed the ‘good-bye’ into an invitation to ‘come’.
I think of Myrtle from time to time. Her Christian testimony to family and friends included me. She really loved Jesus Christ because He had loved her first. She loved people, too, her son and his wife, Ruby. She loved me, a gangly teen boy who was learning to become a strong Christian and using her life as one of his examples.
This is an absolutely true story. No names have been changed. All of the named people in the story have died now. Some have gone on to meet Myrtle, just as I plan to do.
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