Last week, I had a call, requesting that I post an old story about Youngest Son and Old Gertrude.  The funny thing is, Old Gertrude has been on my mind so very much over the past few weeks.

She loved Rachel with all her heart.  She loved birthdays and presents and all of us with a fierce and undying loyalty.

She had a chair by the toy box, and she would take a big old sheet of plastic canvas and she would stitch and stitch, then take it out and start over again.  

“Mom,” she would say to me, “I’m gonna’ do my latch!”

She was an incongruity of disability and ability.  She could actually crochet a chain, tie her shoes, make her bed in her better days. 
She could see my heart.
One morning, while my Sweet Mama was so desperately ill in a Baltimore hospital, I had come home for the night, and was doing the morning showers for Old Gertrude and Blind Linda.  I had been so careful not to cry in the presence of my Mama, and had tried to keep a brave front before my children.  But as I washed Old Gertrude that morning, the tears were spilling down my cheeks in copious amounts.  She reached out her wrinkled old hand and touched my face.

“Oh, Mom.  What’s wrong?”  Her faded blue eyes were intently on my face.

“I’m just sad, Gertrude.  My Mama is so sick, and I don’t know what is going to happen . . .”

She wiped a tear off my face.  “It will be okay,” she said gently.  “He’s (this was always ‘God’ to her) takin’ care of you.  It’s gonna be okay.”

I was so blessed by her concern, so touched by her love for me, so encouraged by her words.

Today, I was eating jelly beans.  (Yep, there is something wrong with me.  I love them!)  Eating Jelly Beans brought back some strong and compelling memories.  Old Gertrude didn’t like alot of candy.  Pure Hershey’s chocolate most of the time and Jelly Beans (if they were the right kind).

YELLOW ONES and BLACK ONES.

Once a year, her family would bring bring her an Easter basket, and Old Gertrude would take out the stuffed animal then go through and eat out the chocolate and the black and yellow Jelly beans.  I would come into her room and she would have chocolate smeared from ear to ear and black and yellow jelly bean remnants stuck in those horrible teeth.  And she would be as happy as she could be.  One thing that rarely happened was that the children asked to share her Easter Candy.  She would caress each piece, and examine it while she licked her fingers and separated out what she wanted.  Nope, that Easter Basket was her property.

As the years passed, she was more and more content to sit by the fire and keep warm.  When we installed our pellet stove, she was tickled pink.  She would sit in her chair and watch the flame dance and flicker.  “I’m watching television” she would sometimes say when something like this would catch her attention. 

She made us laugh, she was always in our cheering section.  She loved to sing.  Some days I think about all the things we are without since she went to Heaven, and it feels like we are poor, indeed.  But she is rich.  She loved the Lord Jesus and trusted Him to bring her safely home.

And when all was said and done, that was enough.