I guess I will try to catch you all up on some happenings in my life. For the sake of length I will try to split this into a couple of blogs. After the recap I will get back to the randomness because I already have some random thoughts I would like to discuss.
My last blog was was my momentous chat with teh Palin family and holding little Trig. That was the week of Thanksgiving 2009. THe holidays were a little different this past year. Looking back I have to say they were some of th emost memorable, but maybe the saddest I hope to ever have.
In one of my frist few blogs "Friend of Mine" I talked about my dear frined Charlotte and her battle with cancer. Shortly after I completed the 3 Day walk Charlotte took a turn for the worst. She reached the point of being confined to her home with hospice anf family caring for. The holiday season was spent with weekly visits to Hamilton to spend time with Charlotte. I went ot Hamilton more than I have sinc emy parents moved away. She was very weak, but we had some of the most powerful conversations in that short time. It was so difficult seeing her so weak, but being able to have that closure and say things we wanted to say was definitely a gift from God. Charlotte passed away on Jan. 28, 2010. .She almost made it to the Super Bowl she so longed to see. Her death was extremely hard on me. I still on occasion have my days, but most of the time I can listen to a Rod stewart song and luahg or just reflect on our wonderful memories we shared. The funeral service was uplifting, funny and of course tearful. Charlotte will always be a art of me. She is a part of who I am . I want to close this blog with a cop of a speech that a friend presented at her funeral.
The Magnum Opus of Charlotte Rich
By Cassius Johnson
January 30, 2010
I would be remised if I did not start with verse.
Whan that Aprill with, his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour.
Whan Zephrus eek with his sweete breth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes; and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe coursy ronne.
We still know that the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. Three generations of this community know these verses written at the end of the fourth century in Middle English by Geoffery Chaucer. The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories told by a band of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Saint Thomas Benedict at Canterbury. As was the custom, stories were told often with great theater, the primary form of entertainment of the time. It turns out that the prologue that we learned to recite is a beautiful description of the breaking of Spring. Chaucer describes April showers and their rich power that cause the flowers to bloom. He described the air as sweet with birds singing and the constellation Taurus visible in the night sky as the pilgrims start their pilgrimage to Canterbury.
Today is not Spring. And before this cold Winter day, learning the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, and Shakespearean Sonnets and lines from Macbeth ("Out, out brief candle”), and John Donne (Oh, how I do love John Donne. His sonnet “Death Be Not Proud” has given me great comfort the last couple of days.), these were among the hardest assignments that Mrs Rich gave. If you remember she had no deep affection for American literature. She was a romantic and loved the rhyme, technique, and the craft of English literature. For us, learning classic English literature was a rite of passage and a capstone education experience at our dear ole Alma Mater (“Hamilton High, Hamilton High, All hail!”).
Mrs. Rich first asked me to speak at her homegoing service just over four years ago. When she went into hospice care last month she reached out to alert me that the time was near. We all knew that the time would come, but when I heard the words come out of her month I started to cry. She quickly told me to stop it. I could not help but to chuckle and wipe the tears from my eyes. I replied, “yes ma’am” and explained to her that standing before you today would be the hardest assignment she had ever given me. There was a pause as she summoned the energy and the oxygen to state clearly, “Tell them that.”
My friends, this is hard. Today is a difficult day. There is a feeling of great and deep sorrow that hangs over this congregation today. But let me remind you that in spite this, today is a celebration.
Today I stand before you to speak in celebration of the life and endearing legacy of the woman I affectionately called Lady Rich. It’s funny. She wrote in one of her online journal entries that each time she talked with me, she would hold her head just a little higher or maybe not so much higher as with a regal tilt. “He calls me ‘Lady Rich,’ she wrote, “and when he does, I feel like royalty. I remember that I am the daughter of a King,” a child of God.
And she was. She was a lady. She was as Maya Angelou wrote a phenomenal woman. Seldom does one person aspire to have and realize such an impact on the lives of so many people as Mrs. Rich did. This congregation abounds with memories and stories of this great lady.
Can you hear them? Well, can you?
Can you hear her voice in our memories and in our stories?
There are countless memories of engaging conversations, as she was a curious intellectual that took great pride in her humble small town roots and values. Yet there was nothing small about her intellect or her worldview. We all have had conversations where she put in front of us nuggets of wisdom that quiet simply sent our thinking in a different direction.
There are many stories of being challenged by Mrs. Rich the teacher who never lowered her expectations for any of us. Even when we fell short, her firm and gentle affirmations would prevail upon and push us. As she proclaimed “I am no super teacher, just one who has been blessed to teach what I love to those I love.
”Teaching was her profession and one of her many passions. She was also passionate about America, Alabama, and Hamilton. And when I say Alabama and Hamilton, I mean that state and our town, as well as the Crimson Tide and the Aggies.
She was also passionate about music, especially Rod Stewart. Her favorite song was “Have I told you lately that I love you?” “You fill my heart with gladness; take away my sadness; ease my troubles, that’s what you do.”
She was passionate about God, our savior Jesus Christ, and about prayer. Over the last 10 years she knew that she had an entire community praying for her. It was those prayers and the sincere love of those who prayed that emboldened her to wage a most valiant of fights against the “Beast” she called cancer.
She was passionate about her son Colin. Colin, you should be at peace. She loved all of us, her kids, but especially you she loved unconditionally. She never missed an opportunity to say how much she loved you and how proud she was of the man you are and will become. Our prayers are with you and your entire family. May peace be with you.
Most all of us here today have spent the last 48 hours in reflection. We have called friends and classmates to reminisce and share memories and retell stories. We have looked through the Agi-H-Eco, even re-reading the message she wrote to us in our senior yearbook. We looked through our own picture albums and old emails. These are among the things people do when we lose someone we love-- we reflect. We yearn to surface and hold onto those memories and stories that time attempts to leave behind. In her own wisdom Mrs. Rich left a gift for us all in the form of a journal on the Caringbridge website that she started over a year ago. I sat Thursday evening and read through her numerous entries.
You actually go back in time as you read through the journal creating the sense that as you read she is getting better. She wrote about many of you, including “her girls,” her closest friends in the world. She wrote about Mrs. Ruth Palmer, one of her mentors another phenomenal woman who also touched my life and the lives of so many others at Hamilton High and Bevill State.
She quoted great works of literature that she loved—John Milton, John Keats, John Donne, Emily Dickinson and Kahil Gibran who wrote: "Your children are not your children; they come through you but not from you; you may house their bodies,but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams."
The last passage on the webpage, which was also the first passage she wrote in her journal was distinctly Charlotte Rich. She wrote: I do want to dispell a rumor that is circulating-I have only six months to live. No doctor has ever told me that; I haven't asked! I will live, as you will, until it is time for me to die. Maybe keeping this journal of facts will help distinguish fact from fiction.Have a blessed day,Charlotte
I encourage you to read her words online. Those writings are among the gifts she has left behind for us. They will lift you up, make you cry, and appreciate the little things in life that we far too often take for granted.
The outpouring of the emotions since her death is best seen on the facebook page created by Daniel Stidham in honor of Mrs. Rich. In less than 48 hours more than 1200 people have joined, many of whom have left reflections on the wall. The facebook page has grown into a powerful testimony to her influence on our lives. Charlene Johnson’s posting was moving. She wrote: Mrs. Rich was a lady. From her flipped out hair to her tights she had to wear, she was a lady. She never waivered- the woman you met in the morning was the same one that left in the afternoon. She pushed and shoved, but it was only to straighten and strengthen us - we were "her kids". She knew every one of us - even years later - by name, and never hesitated to stop and hug and catch up whenever we happened upon each other. She was someone you wanted to please, someone you wanted proud of you. And she was proud of each and every one of us because she loved us for who we were. We were "her kids".
Charlene, if you are here, well stated. I believe all Mrs. Rich’s kids agree.
Before I say my final words, I pray Mrs. Rich’s forgiveness for crossing the Atlantic Ocean and quoting the writings of the American author E.B. White.
E.B. White wrote the story of another lady named Charlotte (Cavatica) who spun in her webs the words that saved Wilbur’s life. At the end of Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte is speaking to Wilbur after completing her sac of eggs. She explains to him: You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.
Wilbur asks Charlotte what’s in the sac laying to her side that looked somewhat like a deflated balloon. She replied,
This is my egg sac, my magnum opus, my great work, the finest thing I have ever made.
We are Mrs. Rich’s Magnum Opus, her great work. We, her son, her friends, family and hundreds upon hundreds of her kids who sat in her classroom are her greatest work. Through us and in us, Charlotte Rich will live on through the years. So as we leave here today, let us continue to share. Let us never forget our memories. Let us allow her passion and spirit to live, in our walk, in our talk, in our every action. We are her Magnum Opus and through us Charlotte Rich shall live.
I conclude by quoting from what our faith regards as the greatest book ever written—the Bible. The last two verses of Proverbs 31 read: 30 Grace is deceitful, and beauty is vain; but a woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. 31 Give her of the fruit of her hands; and let her works praise her in the gates.
Let there be praise in the gates for Charlotte Rich. That is our prayer.Amen.
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