“Howdy Do”

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I have told you many times about our friend Miss Katherine. She’s 95. Yesterday Ray and I saw Miss Katherine at the funeral home. As we made our way to give our respects to a grieving family, she caught our eyes and waved at us from her pew midway back in the large room.

There she was, sitting in a pew at a funeral home quietly showing respect, as she has done probably hundreds of times in her 95 years. She had driven out from her home in town to the funeral home just a little way out in the country. She had pulled into the driveway, parked her car, and walked briskly and purposefully down the hall, head slightly ahead of her body, greeting one after another with her familiar nod of the head and her kind, lilting, smiling, “Well, hello” or “Howdy do.”

To those who had said, “How are you?” she had simply nodded and smiled or she had said, “Pretty good for an old woman.” At least, that’s what she says to Ray and me when we ask. If she was in a particularly spunky mood, she may have added with a laugh, “Still climbing, but they’ve greased the pole.”

I didn’t see what happened when Miss Katherine went down the hall. I didn’t have to see it. I just know, because Miss Katherine is always the same — always. Friendly. In a bit of a hurry. And her smile, oh, how it lights her face — and the room. A two- or three-syllable laugh often accompanies that bright, big smile.

When our visit with the family was finished, we walked toward the back of the room. When we neared Miss Katherine sitting alone in her pew, looking anything but lonely — just content, completely content —  we stopped to say hello. Ray’s greeting was perfect: “Miss Katherine, do you know what you are? You’re a pillar.”

Mamas and daddies have all kinds of goals for their children, but I don’t remember anyone ever saying to me, “I want my Timmy (or Tammy) to be a pillar.” But, you know what? A pillar is a mighty fine thing to be.

He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God,
and he will not go out from it anymore;
and I will write on him the name of My God,
and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem,
which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.
Revelation 3:11-12

Note: For those of you who have used Our Star-Spangled Story with your first, second, third, or fourth grader, Miss Katherine is the young Tennessee woman we talk about in Unit 22 when we learn about World War II.

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One comment

  1. I wish I had a younger child so I would have a good reason to purchase and read Our Star Spangled Story. LOL

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