I was told it was a freezing cold November day when she decided she would be my momma. She took of work and drove on up Highway 51 from the Potter Company to Hardy Wilson hospital to pick me up and hold my hand for the first time, November 14, 1975. From that moment on I was hers.
Momma had a servant's heart, just like her momma, Gracie Ida. If I had a dollar for every morning I woke up to find Momma in the kitchen making a pone of biscuits for an uncle, or six, I would be sitting pretty right now. Everyone knew Momma's table would be ready in just a few minutes of their arrival with a meal and that they could stay as long as they wanted, even if she did have to get up the next morning at 5 a.m. to get ready to go to her blue collar job and work for $4.00 an hour. She absolutely loved serving others. She most definitely spoiled me. She did everything for me. When I am sick, boy do I miss her bringing my meals to the bed and constantly caring for me. Now that's my job.
I wish my children would have gotten the opportunity to know her and her personality. She was never serious, just like her big brother Willie. Well, all the Furlows are pretty crazy funny. You never knew what Momma was going to say or come up with next. And she was not an "easy on the ears" speaking lady, either. She loved Jesus, but she would cuss, too. I guess that's where I get that from. I would give anything to hear her call my any one of my kids "a little shit ass." I would fuss at her probably, I'm sure. But I can just hear the love in her voice when I play it in my head. My cousin, Kellie, remembers her trying to "burn" her with her cigarette liter. She would never have, but it was her way of joking with kids. And she would come at you with a knife making you think she was going to stab you, but she would turn it under at just the last second. Sick humor, I know. But that was my Momma.
Momma would have loved her grandbabies, and they would have adored her. When Keith and I told her that I was pregnant with Shelli, she immediately, like during the conversation, got on the phone and started calling her sisters to tell them she was going to be a mawmaw. That was October. In December, December 15, 1995, as a matter of fact, Momma was diagnosed with lymphoma and was told she had six months to live.
Just when I was figuring out that "Momma was right about all those things" and that I needed a mother beside me in this world, she was about to leave this world for good. I felt angry for a while, and I felt robbed. We barely got to know each other as women. I didn't even get the chance to get her biscuit recipe or her famous praline recipe. There were things I needed to know, and she was being taken from me just when I needed her.
Momma fought hard. She suffered hard. The family tells me that she fought the battle hard just so she could be around to see Shelli born. And that she did. Momma was there the entire time I was in labor with Shelli until the wee hours of the morning when she was born. Momma was worn slap out, but she was a trooper. She came in and told me "You did good" and gave me a kiss. They took her home and she came back as soon as she could, that woman.
The last day I spent with Momma was good. One of the few days that I actually got to be alone with her after she was sick. It was just a God-ordained day of Momma, baby Shelli, and me. We sat around the house and talked. She decided she wanted mandarin chicken from Ken's Golden China for lunch so we shared a buffet. Later she wanted a snowcone. We rode to Gussie's and I got her a strawberry with cream, her favorite. When we got home, something had changed. As I tried to help her out of the car, it was like all hope left her because she was so weak at that point. I left a little later with the regular "I love you's" and "good byes".
So thankful for that day because that was the last day I got to spend with Momma while she was conscious. The next day she went out and never woke back up. We spent the next week at the Baptist Hospital watching her body get weaker and weaker. Hoping for a miracle but all the while knowing this was the time God was going to call her weak and torn body home.
As her breaths got slower and shallower and her heartbeat got fainter and fainter, the nurse came and unplugged the morphine drip. She said Momma could no longer feel the pain anyway. I sat by her side and held her hand. Keith was there. Daddy was in and out. Aunt Bernice and Aunt Janice were there too. The nurse would come in every so often to check her vitals.
As I watched Momma's chest go up and down, my mind was flooding with all the memories I had of her that I never wanted to lose...like her Christmas pralines, playing dominoes, baiting a hook with a worm like nobody's business, fishing with a cane pole from sun up to sun down, her biscuits, her homemade mac n cheese, the day I got married...and then all of a sudden it was like a cloud filled the room with a peace like I have never experienced before, and I looked at Momma's chest and it was not moving. I truly believe that I was holding her hand that exact moment when she crossed over Jordan and saw Jesus face to face for the first time. You could tell there was no more pain, no more tears! What a glorious moment it was!
That was the last time I held her hand...on a hot summer's day in June. June 7, 1996
 |
Momma and me...she submitted this picture one time at a beauty pageant she entered me and we won Mother/Daughter Look Alike. The judges were shocked to learn that I was adopted. She loved that story.
|
I was told it was a freezing cold November day when she decided she would be my momma. She took of work and drove on up Highway 51 from the Potter Company to Hardy Wilson hospital to pick me up and hold my hand for the first time, November 14, 1975. From that moment on I was hers.
Momma had a servant's heart, just like her momma, Gracie Ida. If I had a dollar for every morning I woke up to find Momma in the kitchen making a pone of biscuits for an uncle, or six, I would be sitting pretty right now. Everyone knew Momma's table would be ready in just a few minutes of their arrival with a meal and that they could stay as long as they wanted, even if she did have to get up the next morning at 5 a.m. to get ready to go to her blue collar job and work for $4.00 an hour. She absolutely loved serving others. She most definitely spoiled me. She did everything for me. When I am sick, boy do I miss her bringing my meals to the bed and constantly caring for me. Now that's my job.
 |
Jerline being Jerline. She HATED
to have her picture taken.
|
I wish my children would have gotten the opportunity to know her and her personality. She was never serious, just like her big brother Willie. Well, all the Furlows are pretty crazy funny. You never knew what Momma was going to say or come up with next. And she was not an "easy on the ears" speaking lady, either. She loved Jesus, but she would cuss, too. I guess that's where I get that from. I would give anything to hear her call my any one of my kids "a little shit ass." I would fuss at her probably, I'm sure. But I can just hear the love in her voice when I play it in my head. My cousin, Kellie, remembers her trying to "burn" her with her cigarette liter. She would never have, but it was her way of joking with kids. And she would come at you with a knife making you think she was going to stab you, but she would turn it under at just the last second. Sick humor, I know. But that was my Momma.
Momma would have loved her grandbabies, and they would have adored her. When Keith and I told her that I was pregnant with Shelli, she immediately, like during the conversation, got on the phone and started calling her sisters to tell them she was going to be a mawmaw. That was October. In December, December 15, 1995, as a matter of fact, Momma was diagnosed with lymphoma and was told she had six months to live.
Just when I was figuring out that "Momma was right about all those things" and that I needed a mother beside me in this world, she was about to leave this world for good. I felt angry for a while, and I felt robbed. We barely got to know each other as women. I didn't even get the chance to get her biscuit recipe or her famous praline recipe. There were things I needed to know, and she was being taken from me just when I needed her.
Momma fought hard. She suffered hard. The family tells me that she fought the battle hard just so she could be around to see Shelli born. And that she did. Momma was there the entire time I was in labor with Shelli until the wee hours of the morning when she was born. Momma was worn slap out, but she was a trooper. She came in and told me "You did good" and gave me a kiss. They took her home and she came back as soon as she could, that woman.
 |
| Since Momma was sick the entire time she knew Shelli, all she was able to do was hold her. But to her, that was enough. She absolutely adored Shelli. I know there are hundreds of stories that were left untold. |
The last day I spent with Momma was good. One of the few days that I actually got to be alone with her after she was sick. It was just a God-ordained day of Momma, baby Shelli, and me. We sat around the house and talked. She decided she wanted mandarin chicken from Ken's Golden China for lunch so we shared a buffet. Later she wanted a snowcone. We rode to Gussie's and I got her a strawberry with cream, her favorite. When we got home, something had changed. As I tried to help her out of the car, it was like all hope left her because she was so weak at that point. I left a little later with the regular "I love you's" and "good byes".
So thankful for that day because that was the last day I got to spend with Momma while she was conscious. The next day she went out and never woke back up. We spent the next week at the Baptist Hospital watching her body get weaker and weaker. Hoping for a miracle but all the while knowing this was the time God was going to call her weak and torn body home.
As her breaths got slower and shallower and her heartbeat got fainter and fainter, the nurse came and unplugged the morphine drip. She said Momma could no longer feel the pain anyway. I sat by her side and held her hand. Keith was there. Daddy was in and out. Aunt Bernice and Aunt Janice were there too. The nurse would come in every so often to check her vitals.
 |
| The day I got married. |
As I watched Momma's chest go up and down, my mind was flooding with all the memories I had of her that I never wanted to lose...like her Christmas pralines, playing dominoes, baiting a hook with a worm like nobody's business, fishing with a cane pole from sun up to sun down, her biscuits, her homemade mac n cheese, the day I got married...and then all of a sudden it was like a cloud filled the room with a peace like I have never experienced before, and I looked at Momma's chest and it was not moving. I truly believe that I was holding her hand that exact moment when she crossed over Jordan and saw Jesus face to face for the first time. You could tell there was no more pain, no more tears! What a glorious moment it was!
That was the last time I held her hand...on a hot summer's day in June. June 7, 1996
.JPG)