Happy Lady

My Aunt Glenda was one of the happiest people I’ve ever known.

Now, this is particularly remarkable because, from all appearances, she had little or nothing to be happy about. She had cancer for about a decade and bounced from hospital to hospital enduring every possible torture in the form of treatment. Add to this picture a hard life in the Virginia mountains, raising two boys on one salary, isolated from the “stuff” that most of our family takes for granted.

But she had everything that mattered. She and my uncle seemed to adore one another. She laughed a lot — often at herself — and possessed a fearsome faith in a God that watched out for her and those she loved. She didn’t claim to understand why she had cancer, but would point out that without it, she wouldn’t have taken her witness beyond the road where she was born, lived, and died.

Every time I conjure up an image of Aunt Glenda she is smiling and laughing — mane of red hair matching the blush that was often inspired by her realization that we were paying her any mind.

I left a pomegranate on her gleaming white casket. It seemed fitting… plump, red, and filled with little seeds. That happy lady certainly spread her share of little seeds… faith, laughter, humility, and hope.

Such a lovely, lovely legacy.