My mother-in-law’s funeral was last week. I will miss Dottie Cole. I don’t think we ever had a cross word over 25 years. As Ginny would say, “My mother has the biggest crush on you.”
I hugged her just before she died. I’m not sure she heard me. They say that the hearing is the last thing to go.
I went through every family member and noted how each one was doing fine and progressing well. I read Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 to her. I asked her why she was waiting. “Go on and see Jesus. He’s waiting for you. It will be so beautiful. We’re right behind you.”
Then I gave her a big bear hug and a long kiss on her forehead.
It’s not easy to hug someone when they are almost a corpse. There is an innate revulsion, a fear of death. I had to force myself, thinking “There’s no way you’re going to let a superficial feeling keep you from hugging someone you love dearly right before they go.”
My last words were, “I love you Dottie.” I walked out of the door and drove back to the office. As I walked in, my cell phone rang. It was Ginny. I knew before I answered Dottie was gone and she was.
I drove back immediately, tears flowing. Tears of sadness, but also tears of joy that she was no longer suffering, tears of joy that God gave me a gift, those final moments with her, another pillar to bolster my faith.
In my mind’s eye I could see Dottie as a young child, playing in a beautiful green meadow with angels. “Come on Dottie,” the angels were saying. “Come with us. Let’s go see Jesus.”
Dottie turned to me with a questioning gaze. The expression on her face made it clear to me that she was seeking my permission. “Go Dottie go! It’s all right. Go!”
No one knows what goes on in a person’s mind in those semi-conscious last days of a lingering death. She could squeeze our hand in response to questions so we knew she could hear us. In the last days, she barely squeezed out an “I love you” to my son Lawrence as he tearfully promised to be a better person because of her.
More disturbing, she was able to tell Ginny the day before she died she was feeling “so much pain.” We rushed to get her morphine and sedatives and they seemed to work. We pray they worked.
I can imagine, and I hope, that there was an intense dream state in which she saw visions of God, Jesus and angels encouraging her, supporting her. There are many stories handed down through the ages about such pre-death visions and experiences. But since no one can come back and tell us, we really don’t know.
When Dottie’s husband, Jeff Cole, passed away, I watched him reach his arms up from his hospice bed, looking intently upward as though he was seeing God.
Death is part of life, this we all know. We will all die. But it is the individual deaths of our loved ones that really initiate us into its reality. We are all intimately aware of the exact process of dying for each of our family members and dear friends. Each death is unique.
My mother and father died unexpectedly. My father more so, being out jogging before he gunned it up the hill to his house overlooking the Delta and keeled over dead in the driveway, just like we warned him was going to happen.
My mother had been ill for a month and was recovering from hip replacement surgery. She got up to brush her teeth and fell over dead. My paternal grandfather died similarly, suddenly in his bathroom after a fall earlier in the week.
My maternal grandmother died slowly of emphysema, my mother holding her hand in the Greenwood hospital, giving her permission to go. It is from my mother that I learned this technique.
My maternal grandfather got the gold standard for dying, in his sleep after a round of golf the day before. But he was too young, 70.
My paternal grandmother went the least preferable way, in my book, in a nursing home at 95 after 10 years of dementia.
I feel so blessed to have witnessed the devoted, selfless actions of my wife Ginny and her sister-in-law Donna Knight, who did every single thing a daughter and daughter-in-law could possibly be expected to do for their mother and mother-in-law in such a situation. Their actions will be an inspiration for the rest of my life.
My brother-in-law Terrell was constantly there at his mother’s side. There were dozens of visits and calls by friends and relatives. My church family rallied. Covenant Presbyterian pastor Josh Cole came and prayed many times. It was an inspiration to see such a beautiful send off.
Dear to my heart was giving Dottie her last communion as an elder in my church along with fellow elder Jeff Weill who has done countless shut-in communions over the years.
Dottie kept her cancer a secret for a long time, having made the personal choice to have one good year instead of three tortured years. It was not curable. What a brave, strong, selfless decision from a brave, strong selfless lady.
Ginny wrote a beautiful obituary, calling her mother “a southern belle with a twist.” Everybody assumed I wrote it, so I decided to put Ginny’s byline on it. Yes, Ginny can be a wonderful writer when she puts her mind to it.
Josh Cole, whom we all adore, especially Dottie, gave the most beautiful, most perfect sermon. Here are a few of his words:
“As many of you have shared memories of her, remembrances of her, what you talk about is not her accomplishments. And she certainly had them. Her education. Her teaching career. Her service in the community. Her progressive views during the time of integration.
“But what I heard over and over was also what I observed; how she held herself. How she treated those around her. And it was all rooted in love.
“Dottie was vivacious, Her whole life vivacious. Full of laughter. During times of blessing. And even times of tribulation. Not that she laughed at the tribulation, but she could still find joy. Dottie took joy in life. She shined it. She shared it with you. Because of love.”
It is our love we truly leave behind, not our accomplishments or possessions. And Dottie leaves so much love. There is not nearly enough space to tell of all the many kind things she did for so many people.
Dottie’s faith was rock solid, a faith so strong that she was able to hand it down to her family, all of whom share a deep, abiding faith. I simply cannot fathom how one could survive such losses without it. Dottie was my pew mate. No matter what, I could always count on her to be there Sunday morning.
And I can certainly count on her to be there in heaven when my time arrives. Well done.
