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| MOTHER'S TEAR STAINED NOTEBOOK |
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| by MARIANE HOLBROOK |
| Mother’s handwriting always appeared unhurried, carefully constructed, using the correct
Palmer Method of writing, and easily readable. “Please excuse Mariane’s absence from
school last week. She has been ill with measles.”
That was when I first noticed Mother’s writing. Mother lived to be 96 years old. During her lifetime she must have written thousands of letters to family and friends in nearly every part of the world. Her writing was distinctively hers and I have in my possession several letters she wrote to me through the years. After losing two godly husbands to cancer, Mother chose to move to a Christian assisted living facility in Pennsylvania because she didn’t want to “be a burden” to any of her children. For sixteen years she lived comfortably there, loved by all the residents and staff, and regularly visiting her children in several states. After she passed away ten years ago, all four of her living daughters asked the same question: “What happened to Mother’s spiral notebook?” It was a priceless item that any of us would have loved to own. Sadly, it was never found. Whether it was taken by a caring nurse who loved Mother, or tossed into the trash by someone not knowing its eternal worth, we don’t know. It was a blue spiral notebook, dog-eared and tear-stained. It was always within reach of her nursing center bed where she picked it up several times during the day and the long, pain-piercing nights. At the top of the first seven pages were the names of her seven children. Listed below, were their children and their grandchildren. Beside each name was a prayer request: “Give John a good nurse.” (John, her youngest son, suffered from Supranuclear Palsy of the Brain. His progressive illness broke her heart.) “Jeff needs a job.” “Thank You for touching Norma. “ Some names were followed by a blank space. Those blanks represented a special need in that person’s life that Mother only discussed privately with her Lord. Or they were confidential prayer requests that Mother honored until she died. Throughout the rest of the notebook were names of friends, preachers, missionaries with whom she corresponded, churches, world leaders, special ministries. Lying there in bed with failing eyesight, she’d hold her finger on each name and move it along as she covered that request with prayer. She carefully made note of any prayers that were answered, along with the date. Interestingly, no name was ever removed from her notebook. She lamented that the empty pages at the back of the notebook should have names and prayer requests on them and she determined that they would have, eventually. Today, ten years after her death, those empty pages still trouble me. If Mother had lived longer, those pages would have been filled. Who, I wonder, is not being prayed for, now that she’s gone? Whose lives might have been changed had she been given both the honor and responsibility of faithfully praying for them and their needs? Who has stepped into the gap Mother left to pray for those who would have been listed on those empty pages? Indeed, who is praying for all the names that filled the notebook, people who depended on her prayers to help see them through the hard times of their lives? The verse, “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17), Mother accepted as God’s personal directive to her. In her final years she was bedridden and suffered unbelievably excruciating pain from double curvature of the spine, crippling arthritis, sciatica, neuropathy, bursitis, congestive heart failure and a painful broken leg that never properly healed. Yet every day she sang aloud God’s praises for comfort, read the Word and immersed herself in prayer with the help of a little spiral, tear-stained, dog-eared notebook which surely now rests in a glass-enclosed place of high honor in the sacred halls of heaven. ----------- Mariane Holbrook is a retired teacher, an author of two books, a musician and artist. She lives with her husband on coastal North Carolina. She maintains a personal website www.marianholbrook.com and welcomes your Emails at Mariane777@bellsouth.net |
