From This Day to Graduation

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In the midst of the hills surrounding us here in Jackson County, we often hear echoes of the British Isles from whence we came in colloquial words and unique pronunciations.

Most of the years since we have been here, locals have enjoyed the annual alumni banquet held for people who have graduated through the decades from Jackson County High School. We had never heard alumni pronounced the way it is here. Think aluminum with an i on the end instead of an um.

Graduation — now there’s a word often on the minds of many homeschool mamas. Can I last till graduation — four years from now, six years from now, thirteen years from now?

On Saturday Ray, Mother, and I attended a graduation. Whether a person graduates from kindergarten or the eighth grade (which used to be a big deal in days gone by) or high school or college or graduate school or medical school or officer training school, there is really only one graduation that matters. That graduation is the one we celebrated on Saturday.

It was the graduation ceremony for Joy Brown, who graduated to eternity the previous Saturday. This graduation ceremony was held a week later because one of Miss Joy’s sons had to leave Gainesboro the day after his mother’s death to fly home, then fly with his wife to Boston for her cancer treatment, then fly her back home, and then fly back to Tennessee.

Miss Joy’s was a life lived with joy in spite of adversities that would have made many women bitter. Her husband, whom she married just after the Great Depression and at the beginning of World War II, died when they had been married just ten years. That’s when she began to rear her young sons alone. For many years she was the sole provider for her two sons, her mother and father, her sister, and an aunt.

In the midst of these trials, her two boys grew up in a joyful home filled with music — from the Big Band era, from mama sitting at the piano, and from beautiful singing at church — every time the doors were open, according to the boys.

One by one the population in Miss Joy’s house dwindled. Her sons left home. Her sister married. Her mother, father, and aunt died, leaving a house full of memories. However, Miss Joy did not sit and become bitter. She worked. She entertained our community. She opened her heart to new friends, including my family and me. She laughed. She worshipped. She prayed.

As I have told you before, in the years that I knew Miss Joy, her two boys lived far away and she was then a great-grandmother, but her boys came home at the same time several times a year to visit with mama in the house where she had lived most of her years. I saw a joyful Miss Joy many times, but the most joyful times were while they were here. She gave herself a time to be a little blue right after they left. She waited anxiously to hear that they were safely back home and then resumed her joyful life and her daily talks with each of them.

At her “graduation party” on Saturday, one of her sons, her granddaughter, and our minister spoke not only of the joyful Joy, but also of the many heartaches she suffered and her decision to remain joyful instead of bitter.

Her granddaughter, who has grown children herself, spoke of a grandmother who sat in the floor and played with her and her siblings, who sang to them, who repeated nursery rhymes, and who threw her head back and laughed heartily. She spoke of her grandmother’s persistent love of life and of her choice of victorious living.

Miss Joy’s granddaughter related a story that I believe was a microcosm of Miss Joy’s life. This granddaughter watched one day as her grandmother received a tough phone call. First, she watched Miss Joy receive the news and then she watched as her grandmother grew resolute as she made the decision to face what she had just heard.

I loved the comments Ray and I heard from one person after another on Saturday.

From a great-grandmother: Miss Joy used to give me permanents when I was a little girl [during Miss Joy’s years as a beautician].

From our minister: Joy used to come in singing a hymn and then expect me to finish it [she would try to stump him!].

From one of Miss Joy’s sons: When I was here during the last month [and she had recently gotten out of the hospital], I decided to play Scrabble with her [a game she loved to play with her boys]. She sat looking at the board for what seemed like 30 minutes [after drawing her first 7 tiles of the game]. I thought maybe this wasn’t going to work and then she laid all 7 tiles down and played a 7-letter word.

From a 91-year-old member of our church: Now I am the oldest person in town.

It’s true that you are helping your children prepare for graduation, but the graduation you are ultimately preparing them for is one far more important than any graduation that takes place in a school or a state homeschool organization or a local homeschool support group. You are training your children for the graduation. For the years between now and graduation, you are training them how to live a joyful, victorious life no matter what that life looks like along the way.

Consider it all joy, my brethren,
when you encounter various trials,
knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.
And let endurance have its perfect result,
so that you may be perfect and complete,
lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4

 

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