REFLECTIONS
August 6, 2006
 
 
And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher .
2 Timothy 1:11
 
 
Mema
 
Mema was a teacher. That’s how Mom described her and I think she was right. Mema was a teacher all of her life. She taught the love of God and the meaning of life.
She was Mema to me and my brother, Meme to my cousins; Aunt Jakie to many, and Mrs. Terrell to thousands. Mema was a wonderfully kind lady with a willingness to care for anyone in the world. She could have been the woman in the temple who gave only two mites but about whom Jesus said, “[she] put in all she had…”
I can’t recall a single minute being around her that I felt she was not in communion with God. Mema had a mission in life, a purpose to which she devoted her every moment. Even as she worked about the house, she was teaching me the stories of the Bible—how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, the scene at the tomb, and the parable of the Good Samaritan. I always liked the story of David and Goliath.
Each summer I spent several days with Mema. She read me stories and we played games. We played dominos, Chinese checkers, and Pollyanna. She made the bed into a tent by draping a bed spread over a four poster bed; and she took me fishing. Yes, fishing! Not fishing outdoors on a lake or a stream, but fishing in the house.
She would hang a quilt or blanket across the door with me on one side and she on the other. I had a stick for a pole, a string for a line and a hairpin for a hook. I would hang the pole over the blanket and wait. After a while, I would feel a tug on the line and I would lift up the pole to find a toy or a trinket on the hook. What a game!
Mema taught Sunday school past her 90th year. Back then that seemed more amazing to others than to me, but not now. Now I realize how amazing she was. Once I sent a remembrance to her church and received a response from one of Mema’s former students. We all remember the teachers that shaped our lives and Mema shaped thousands of them.
Mema was a teacher. Her subject was life and she taught by how she lived it. Her final years were lived with a grace I have seen but one other time. And when her time came, I know she was saying, “I was glad when they said unto me, ‘Let us go into the house of the Lord’.” She lived her life with a richness that is seldom seen; and she passed that richness to every life she touched.
What more would a teacher want?
 
“You are the light of the world.”
Richard  Ì

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