Aunt Doris

"She was my favorite of your aunts for a long time. I always thought she was so pretty. And classy. She just had that air about her. But she was down to earth at the same time," said my wife this morning. I had just mentioned that I was planning on trying to attend Doris Hodge's funeral. I have missed far too many.

Many I missed because I was a PhD student, and it is not that easy to skip a doctoral seminar. Several more I missed on account of them being at 10:00 o'clock in the morning. For an out of town funeral, that means missing a whole day of work. This one is scheduled for 2:00 o'clock so if I work things just right, I can meet all my classes, leave the last one a little early and still make the service. I want to go. I need to go.

She was the last of two, now there is only Aunt Mary left. All my other aunts are gone. I preached the funerals of two of them. Doris was my favorite for many years, and like my wife, I thought she was pretty beyond belief. How Uncle CD landed her has always been a mystery to me. Aunt Mary once rightly observed that, "none of those Hodge men deserved the women they married. Not a one of them." How true. They were pretty and dependable and hard working. Strong, they were all strong women.

When I was a seminary student at Wesley Biblical in Jackson, I sometimes spent the night with them. They lived in Byram a few miles south of the big town. She always made me feel more than welcome. CD would cook fish, and I would eat like a starving man. Once I even invited a friend, Al McAlarny, to eat with us. When you can invite a friend to a place where you are a guest to eat fish, you feel at home.

CD liked to argue. He baited me one night and though I resisted for several minutes the temptation to go back and forth with him, he finally got me to snap. I raised my voice -- OK, I yelled -- and later after CD had gone to bed Aunt Dorris told me, "I'm glad you and your uncle can talk about politics, but when y'all do, it makes Toy nervous." Toy was their little rat terrier. It became a saying after that in our family that when someone was getting upset, "Toy is getting nervous."

CD also liked to run down people. I asked him once how their daughter, Mary Ann, and her husband were doing. He started telling me about the son-in-law's bad back. "He has a bad back," CD told me. "I recently bought a 1,000 gallon propane tank. I was worried about how I was going to move it. 'Oh Kenny can load it for you,' Mary Ann said. So he picked up one end while I backed the truck under it. He has a baaad back."

Those kinds of things used to infuriate Aunt Doris. She would seethe while he told me about Kenny's bad shoulder. "He has a bad shoulder. He works for a crabber and cranks a 90 horse Yamaha 50 times a day. He has a baaad shoulder."

By this time Doris had to step in and tell CD to stop running down his own family. She was like that: loyal, protective, motherish. Good women always are.

And now she is gone. I know it's not about me, but she is one more loss in a long of things and people, loved ones, who have left. Unfortunately I  know it doesn't stop, the losses. They will keep coming until life takes everything. It's like that. People can tell you that when you are young, but you don't understand until you get old. Too bad we don't cherish those things and people more while we have the chance. Every funeral I attend or want to attend reminds me of that. But unfortunately, I still do it far too little. Help me, Jesus.

I could go on, but I am far too sad to continue. I hope I make the funeral and get to hug some cousins. They too will "go the way of all the earth" one day. So will I. So will you. God help us.