Title: Goodbye, Mom July 27, 2017
Author: Robert Porter
This story is my way of saying goodbye to my mom, to both her soul and spirit. Her death opened my eyes to see a clear distinction between the body, soul and spirit. And how that her light that had been a companion to her soul, stopped by to say goodbye, right before her living house died. But I believe her soul had departed from the land of the living long before this. So I say to that soul and spirit that I knew as a child…“Goodbye, Mom.”
My mom’s mortal body expired July 18, 2017, but I believe her soul had departed long before this. When I last saw her, July 4, 2017, years of suffering from the effects of Alzheimer had taken a toll on her 88-year-old body. She was frail and slept the whole time. But I couldn’t help but notice this glow. It was like her face was a light. And I couldn’t understand how that could be. I was looking at her spirit and didn’t even know what I was looking at.
A couple of days later, it dawned on me that I had been looking at her spirit, the angel that had taken up habitation in her house of flesh, and had been a faithful companion to her soul. I quickly realized that I probably was the only one seeing this light. When I asked my daughter what did she see and she mentioned everything but the light, I also was beginning to realize that this was that same spirit that had stopped by to say “Hi!” some sixty years ago.
It also dawned on me that if it was predestined that the last born male grandchild born from the union of my grandfather, Mr. Porter, and my mother’s mom, grandmother Fannie, would be the one chosen to play the role of God’s servant to come called Elijah, and I just happened to be the last born male grandchild, then that meant that she had been called of God before me. And this light had been given to her as a result of that calling. Which meant there was no way in hell my dad-to-be would have been capable of resisting that light. Mom was called much as Rebekah was called to receive the seed from Isaac, to receive the seed from my grandfather’s seed in my dad. All to have a seed-wise situation in the natural similar to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. With Jacob being the last born male grandchild to come out of the womb, as I was.
I was born in a rural community called Point Peters, Georgia in 1952. I was raised by my grandparents, who lived right down the road from my mom and dad. One day, I was around five or six at the time, I was outside playing in the dirt, because that’s what you do when you’re dirt-poor. I remember hearing someone call my name. I looked between my legs, and straightened up when I saw this lady that was full of light. She had this glow about her. And she seemed so happy to see me. I didn’t know this was my mom, for I don’t remember anyone ever telling me.
Mom’s obituary read:
“She worked at Elberton Poultry for many years and retired to take care of her veteran husband. She also took on many outside tasks as the community taxi service, volunteered and cared for children after school, a very good beautician, provided meals for workers, well known for cooking hash, canning chow-chow, vegetables and fruits, baking all kinds of cakes, sweet potato pies and so much more.”
This is the lady that I came to know and love. I moved in with my mom and dad when I was a teenager. Soft from being raised by my grandmother after my grandfather died when I was around the age of eight, mom wasted no time in making a man out of me. My dad was an alcoholic, so I was expected to do the things a man would do around the house: feed the hogs, draw water from the well, cut wood for the heater, helped in the task of cutting pulpwood, where I had to carry downed pine trees on my back to the truck. But I was always impressed with how mom helped the community, and how our house on Sunday was the gathering place for family and friends, where mom fed the multitude.
So it stands to reason that the Pastor who gave the Eulogy, Pastor Michael Gresham, would say that mom’s work in the community was her ministry. Since they had a new Pastor in the Church she had attended all her life who did not know my mom, my vote was for him to give it. Not because he was my friend, but because he knew my mom. They had been neighbors when he was a kid, and knowing my mom, I’m sure she nurtured him as if he had been one of her own.
My sister, Mary, reported that on the weekends when it would be her turn to spend time with mom at her place after her health began to fail, that Michael would often stop by to see how she was doing. I suspect it was because his ministering spirit – angel given to aid him in his ministry – was in love with her ministering spirit of a different sort.
Pastor Gresham read from 2nd Timothy 4:7:
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:”
With a stern demeanor he said in essence while pointing at her coffin of death; that her prize for fighting the good fight and finishing her course was not here, but to get out of here. Out of this old world filled with suffering and sorrow.
The Spirit eventually weighed in with this message:
“Your mom’s soul is eternal. Which you rightly believe departed from the land of the living long ago. Our heavenly Father would not let a soul suffer like that, in a house that was just worn-out, totally expiring. Why would He do that? He would not be a gracious Father. Would He? Nor would Almighty God be a gracious God. To allow a soul that They had called to suffer! So, yes, death means separation. Her soul was separated long ago, from that living house of flesh, and from that precious light that stopped by to say “Hi!”.
“She stopped by this time to say goodnight for your mom,” the Spirit continued, “to say goodbye. And to say in a way: Remember me? I know it’s been a mighty long time. Some sixty years ago when you were just a child. Playing in your grandmother’s dirt. Your mom came that day with that light,” revealed the Spirit.
After I left home in 1971, I didn’t spend much time with my mom. I saw her once during the first four years, and was lucky if I saw her five or six times a year, after that. And while spirits are companions to our souls, they are not with us 24/7. So I don’t recall during those 40 years I was lost in the wilderness of not spending sufficient time with my mom, seeing that light. I’m sure it may have been there at times, but I just never noticed it. Just as the apostles of the Lamb never really noticed God, who was the Light of the world when He was in the world, walking as One with Jesus. Spirits are either light or darkness. Mom’s spirit was a light.
Mom’s death opened my eyes to see a clear distinction between body, soul and spirit. The body is temporal, but souls and spirits are eternal. Our family lost a great light in mom’s spirit. But her light was a light to light so many others. And God made it clear to me back when Ronald Reagan began to suffer from the effects of having Alzheimer: a body of flesh does not have to die in order for God to bring a soul home to rest in peace. So I say goodbye to my mom’s soul, no matter when it may have departed. And I say goodbye to that light that had been a faithful companion to her soul. I may never see that angel again. For that was her heart. And now it’s searching for another house of flesh in the land of the living to habituate. And now that her body of flesh has died, I say to all that had been my mom, her body, soul and spirit… “Goodbye, Mom.”
Elijah Has Come 