Missing Mom!

“It is more important to influence people than to impress them.” 

                                                                       Adrian Rogers

  She was the quiet, steady one. It wasn’t that she was shy, it was more that before she spoke, she wanted to make sure that she really had something to say. Her humility probably had a lot to do with it too. She was never one to seek the limelight. As much as she could, she dodged it. It was her love for Jesus and others that often brought her into the light, never her desire for the spotlight.

  Heaven grew a little richer for me this past week. Tuesday morning Mom Cummins closed her eyes on this earth and woke up in Glory! Somehow I have the feeling, though the Bible doesn’t tell us, that Dad Cummins was waiting for her to get Home by the gates.

  I first met Mary Cummins (Mom) when she was already in the second half of life. She and Dad Cummins moved to Atlanta, when he became the pastor of my church. Periodically, I’d visit in their home but I never really got to know her until I was in high school. Their home became one of my places of sanity as my real Dad’s addictions spiraled more and more out of control. It was a safe haven! No one was threatening to hurt or kill me.

  Eventually, I convinced my father to send me away to high school when I was fifteen to Wisconsin. I wasn’t sure that my path and the Cummins’ path would ever cross again. But then Dad Cummins took a church in LaCrosse, Wisconsin just as I was beginning my freshman year of college at Maranatha in Watertown…and he invited me to come up on weekends to work in the church with him…the rest is history.

  So here’s a couple that has essentially raised their family. Four out of their five daughters were in adulthood. They’re on the cusp of being empty nesters but they invite this “kid” who’s training for the ministry yet he has lots of baggage to come and live with them.

  I didn’t know anything about being part of a family, at least not a normal one. Essentially, I’d been on my own since I was ten, when my real Mom was killed in a car wreck. At first, it was during the summers and weekends. Later, it would be more. Mom Cummins touched my life in so many ways. Dad Cummins and I were close but there was a special bond between Mom and I, one that I was sometimes oblivious to. I feel inadequate to even put it into words.

  What first drew me to Mom was her casualness. There just wasn’t much that rocked her boat. She had a way making you feel at ease and didn’t make you look stupid. That was huge for me! I’d been shamed and demeaned most of my early years. To be accepted and not feel like I was an idiot was like being in Paradise.

  Then, she was consistently consistent. She just didn’t have bad days. Always steady, always the same. Always with a smile. Always ready to welcome who ever stopped by. Always in her Bible and praying for others. Always ready to serve. For me, she was super woman!

  And I loved her laugh. She had a sweet giggle. She even had it to the very end. She’d surprise you because she was mischievous and you didn’t expect it. For example, when I’d come home on weekends, I’d drink a lot of milk. She had it in a special pitcher in the refrigerator but one week it had gone sour. Knowing that I’d be home soon, she left it. I didn’t realize that it was bad until I’d taken my first big gulp…and she just cackled.

  I’d never met someone so creative, thrifty and hardworking. She made her own granola, graham crackers, ketchup, etc. There wasn’t much Mom wouldn’t try and couldn’t do. She was quite a seamstress and even made underwear (Thankfully not mine!). She just didn’t seem to know how to sit down, and even then her hands would be working. Her therapy was gardening. Woe be to the poor sap who she hooked into helping “for a bit” in the garden. It was more like a month of hard labor. Even those decades younger than her couldn’t keep up with her. She’d work circles around you. You’d be spent but she was like the Energizer Bunny, still going and going and going.   

  I’ve always felt that I was a bit hard to surprise but Mom Cummins continually surprised me. One winter a group of us went snow skiing from the church and Mom went along…and she loved it. She consistently surprised me with her silence. If she didn’t like something, she wouldn’t criticize or complain, she’d get very quiet and just look down.  

  My junior year of Bible college, I went through a very dark valley of doubt. That’s not a good thing for someone training for the ministry. I wasn’t sure what I believed, if the Bible was true, or if there was even a God. I was living with them but was in a constant state of an agitated soul. To make matters worse, jobs were very scarce…so I had nothing to occupy me and more importantly, to occupy my mind.

  Finally, I bailed. I left Dad and Mom a note and hitchhiked to Texas to find a job on the oil rigs. When I’d call home, even though I’d deeply hurt them, though I’d disappointed them and wasn’t their biological son, they begged me to come home. Most people would have washed their hands but not Dad and Mom. Dad would urge me to come home, telling me that Mom was so worried about me that she couldn’t sleep.

  The clouds in my soul still hadn’t cleared but finally I did. I didn’t know how she’d respond when I came to the door. I’ll never forget it. I know a bit what the Prodigal must have felt. Though I’d caused her such heartache – it was total acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love.

  Jane didn’t meet my biological family until the day before we got married but she met Mom and Dad Cummins almost right away. I knew that she was the one when they immediately accepted her as part of the family. They loved her as much as they loved me! When we got married, it was Dad and Mom Cummins who provided the rehearsal dinner for their “son.” They were the grandparents from my side that my children would not have had without them.

  Mom modeled love and commitment. I only saw her become irritated with Dad once in all of the years that I lived with them. Dad was the incurable romantic; she was the school girl who was bashful at so much attention and affection. That they loved each other somehow seems such an inadequate description, and that love that they had for each other flowed from them for others. Every night you’d hear them praying together kneeling by their bed before they went to sleep, praying for all those that they loved and cared for. When the Lord took Dad Home, she showed a side I don’t think any of us had seen before, a broken heart. 

  Words can’t express how much I loved her and will miss her but I wouldn’t wish her back. She’s finally Home and I’ll see her in the morning. I’m just so thankful that the Lord brought her into my life! 

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