2002-08-23 - 10:57 a.m.

Mrs. McClure

I'm thinking this morning about Mrs. Mcclure. She has been gone at least 5 years and we were not close even before but I felt a curious kinship with her. I guess it had to do with grandkids.

I met her when she put her 2 grandgirls in school. They were odd little ducks. They seemed to be lacking in alot of social graces and had hairdos that were more suited to a much older female. The parents had been divorced and dad had custody but had given them to his mom. She had a mail route and good insurance so he had signed them over to her. Later on she told me they were just like little animals when she got them.

She took them to church steadily, got them involved in activities and did very surprising things for them. She showed me the cedar chests she had made for each of the girls the only time I went to her house. She was quite strict with them and oldfashioned. They had chores they had to do each day and she made sure they were prepared for school both in work and dress. She had raised 4 kids of her own, 3 boys and a girl. None had turned out as she had expected from having brought them up in church. The boys had all married unsaved girls and the girl had gotten pregnant as a teen and had left home shortly after.

The youngest boy had come back to You and his wife had gotten saved when I met her and that was a source of satisfaction to her. Her own husbad had been a shiftless sort of fellow who had left thngs to her and they had finally dissolved the marriage when the kids were grown. He now lived with the oldest son (father to the grandgirls) and they ran a small water business.

As the girls grew older and more 'civilized', Dad decided he wanted them back in his life. Mrs. M let him take them on weekends but since spiritual things were far from his mind, church and wholesome activities gradually took a back seat to whatever activities he and dad and occasional live-in girlfriends decided to do. Mrs.M tried to curtail this but all that happened was a custody fight. By this time the girls had developed a taste for the wild life and heartily disliked grandma's attempts to bring them back to the fold.

All this went on while both of them were in my class and I often got roped into various deals on both sides. I even had to testify once for grandma's ability to provide school care for them. I tried to stay as neutral as I could but it was often hard.

Mrs. M herself was not a very likeable person although I can not list any specifics. But her heart was large, not only for her grandgirls but for others. I remember once when she took them 40 miles away to hear the pianist Dino. She also provided them with lessons (very unappreciated!!) and paid for badly needed dental work and braces for the oldest. Her ideas of what constituted proper apparel did not always coincide with the girls' ideas and sometimes I could see their point!

When she finally lost custody of them, both went to live with their dad and spent time with a mom who had come back into their lives. Both were very unhealthy situations but the girls preferred that above all things. School work, social acceptance and other things went downhill rapidly. Grandma died of an early heart attack just a short while later. She was only in her late fifties. Her youngest son had bought her place and she had put a large mobilehome at the back of it for herself and hopefully the girls, but that never happened.

I don't think she was appreciated as much as she should have been. Perhaps as years pass, a glimmer of understanding will come upon the girls and they will see her as the person she was. If I were to talk to her about it, she would probably tell me she did it because that is what You wanted. And that is the very best reason.

I remember you, Mrs. McClure.

EE's devotional

newAutumn Leaves

previous - next