Granny Davis

My grandmother is dying. My first thoughts are, "you were not a very good granddaughter", "you could have been closer", "you should have done more". I was what I knew to be, so was she. We didn't talk a lot or share our hearts or dreams or emotions,but she fed me the greasiest, best mac and cheese ever. She pulled me on her lap, blanketed by an A-line polyester dress, knee-highs rolled down like Thelma Harper. She gave me the greatest gift any human being has ever given me. She gave me her heritage. She showed me Jesus in every day of her life.

Madge Lee McDowell was born 90-something years ago, June 11th to Susan Madge Parkman McDowell, who had been recently widowed. Her husband arose one morning, left his wife, sons, James, Herbert, and John Henry and daughters Carrie Mae, Marie, and Grace to help a friend who was away, with his cotton field in the adjacent property. John Wilson McDowell lost his arm and hours later, his life, to Eli Whitney's cotton gin. He was brought to the porch of their newly built farmhouse in a wheel barrow. I think he knew at the time that his wife was a few months pregnant with a child, but he never knew Madge Lee McDowell Davis, or me.

I could write a novella about her life in rural South Carolina, how she used to take off her stockings at the end of the road before going to school, fell and broke her arm riding side saddle on a horse while holding Easter eggs and got to go to college. One chapter would be about how she met my grandfather and their time in South America.

But what I see now at this moment was a child with no father, who knew the Father like no one else I know. Granny Davis lived a life of ministry and a life of knowing that her Father was Christ Jesus and they had relationship. She went once a week to the Nursing Home to love on those who no one else loved on. I went with her one time. I still remember. There was a young girl there, who was paralyzed. In a wheel chair. Lying down. She smelled like saliva and urine. Granny Davis loved her. She spent her whole day there. And she loved on them. She doted on them. She thought those people hung the moon.

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

That is precisely what she did. And I honor her for that.

We joked about how we always knew on Friday night's that Granny and Papa Davis would be at the Funeral Home, but that was simply her... loving widows.

She became a school teacher after her children were grown and she loved those school children as her own. She taught them scriptures for every letter of the alphabet. In public school. In the 70's. One student became severely burned as a teenager, his entire body, in a car accident I think. His face scarred beyond recognition. It freaked me out as a child. His picture was up in the room in the hall and I would never go in there. She would go and visit him and he, her and she loved him. So much.

Where do you get this love for the unlovely? From the Father. The Father she knew so well. The Father who never turned His gaze from her. Who knew everything about her. Her favorite flower, games to play, her deepest desires.

She talked to Him all the time. She would pace the floor at night and talk to Him as she waited on her son, Henry to come home, praying for his safety. She talked to Him as she washed dishes and asked Him to hold, watch over and protect her children and grandchildren.

And I know that I am here because of her Father. She introduced Him to me through a life that said, "I am not an orphan. I am not alone". And then, she interceded to Him, on my behalf. And He knows me, like He knows her and He is filling my cold, cold heart, with love. Her prayers at the kitchen sink, stored up for me, will cover me for a lifetime. I get to walk in a heritage that is rich, knowing Him.

This moment hurts. Knowing she is uncomfortable. It is my prayer in this very moment and in the days to come that she won't be in pain and will be able to rest and simply step into Heaven. And meet face to face with both father's for the first time, Father God, father John. The jewels in her crown are huge. Good and faithful servant. Religion pure and faultless. Honored am I to walk in the lineage of a woman as kind, loving and compassionate as Madge Davis. Forever grateful am I for those kitchen sink prayers. He heard her cry. He came to me. I have a life of knowing Him, because of her. Plain and simple. Every life I ever touch out of compassion and love, is because of her.