The Woman Who Raised Me (by Mike Glenn)

By Mike Glenn

The doctor looked up at me as he placed a stack of papers on the desk in front of him. He sighed and slowly said, "Mr. Glenn, I can tell you with 100% confidence that your mother has Alzheimer's."

"Who has Alzheimer's?" my mother interrupted.

"Well, mom, the doctor says you do."

"This jackass," my mother said as she pointed to the doctor who happened to be the chief of Vanderbilt's gerontology and memory care department.

That started my four year adventure of caring for my mom who never admitted she was sick. My friends in Tennessee were amazed at her wit and sense of humor. I only wish they had known her before she got sick, when she was still a young woman in Mississippi and Alabama, when she was still able to bend reality to her will.  My mom was a force of nature. To truly understand my mother, you have to know her mother died when she was 12 years old. My mother was the oldest of four girls. Because she was the oldest, my mother thought she was in charge of her three younger sisters. My mother became an adult overnight.  She was never a teen-ager. She never rebelled. She grew up overnight and took care of business.

And she never stopped taking care of business.  My mother only respected strength. If you asked my mother a question, she would assume you didn't know what you were doing and take over the moment. For instance, if you asked my mom a question such as, "Do I turn left here?" Her response would be, "Don't you know where you're going? Just pull over. I'll drive."

And she raised me the same way. There were no excuses. Life isn't fair. Get used to it. Life is hard, but it's hard for everyone so don't feel special. If it was easy to do, Jesus would have given it to someone else. He gave it to us because He knew we'd do the hard things.  You didn't go to my mom for compassion. She didn't have any.  You went to my mom for courage. If you went to my mom with a problem, she would want to know what you were going to do to solve it and then, she would give you a time to get back to her and tell her how it went.

We used to tease my mother that she couldn't be in the movie "Steel Magnolias" because she didn't have enough magnolia in her.

Why am I telling you this? Because growing up with my mom was the best training for leading a local church I could have wished for. Local churches are filled with strong women. Any pastor will tell you that without women's leadership and involvement, local churches wouldn't be able to function. I had grown up having to deal with my mom. Strong women didn't scare me or intimidate me. I'm very comfortable with strong women. My mom had trained me well. These strong women in my church loved my mom and stories about my mom. After all, game recognizes game.

My mother taught me how to pray. Now, my mother didn't pray "Now, I lay me down to sleep..." Nope, my mother had deep, heartfelt and honest conversations with Jesus. If things weren't going well, she told him and then, she told Jesus what she expected Him to do next. If things didn't work out the way she wanted, she would start praying again about why things didn't work out and what was going to happen next. My mother prayed like this because she believed. Jesus could do anything and my mom never let Jesus forget that when she prayed.

Once, when my father was really sick, the doctor came and told us he was concerned about my father surviving the procedure. When the doctor left the room, mom and I just stood in the silence. I said, "Mom, if I was with anyone else, I'd pray. Do you want me to pray." She shook her head yes and when I bowed my head to pray, she elbowed me hard in the ribs. "Now, Michael," she said, "we aren't praying for God's will. You tell Jesus we want daddy back."

And you know what? We got daddy back.

One of my favorite stories about my mom was toward the end of her life when her disease had robbed her of everything. She was living in a place she didn't want to live. Living a life without my dad she didn't want to live.  It was strange, though, with all my mother lost, she never lost her music. She could play the piano and sing until the last day of her life. Once, I took her to church with me and I walked her up on stage so she could play the grand piano in the worship center. I said next to her on the piano bench as she played all of her favorite hymns.

Then something changed.  The moment thickened and the air grew heavy. My Pentecostal friends would have said the Spirit fell on us in a mighty way. My mom was playing the old hymn, "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior." Only she wasn't playing the piano anymore. Mom was praying. With the only language left to her -- music -- mom was praying. "Pass me not, O Gentle Savior, Hear my humble cry; While on others thou aren't waiting, do not pass me by." I'm crying as I type this. I have rarely been that close to God.

I'll never forget that moment. I'll never forget all that she taught me and the fierce way she loved me. I am who I am because of her. Although, she'd probably want to insist we heard her side of the story.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom. Miss you every day.