If you sit at our kitchen table and look out the patio door you’ll see that much of our back yard is covered with a bright green ground cover, that when mowed or stepped on, smells like chewing gum. The plant is fairly common in North America and is known by several different names.
We call it "Creeping Charlie".
Creeping Charlie first showed up in my backyard around twelve years ago after my wife, DeDe, had spent the day with her mama at the family farm in Palmetto, Georgia.
That afternoon, after I got home from work, I walked out in to the back yard and saw a dirt covered Dede, down on her hands and knees, hacking the ground with a garden spade. The yard was littered with 150 feet of garden hose and every yard tool I’ve ever owned. After analyzing this scene for a few moments I finally asked,
“Why are you planting weeds in my back yard?”
I don’t know why but she seemed offended by that. Her head turned a full 360 and an unfamiliar voice growled out “my mama gave these plants to me"
And for the next five minutes she just stared at me with...
"THE LOOK"
Guy readers will know what I'm talking about. For all others, "THE LOOK" is a look you get from someone and you instinctively know that it’s probably not in your best interest to say another word.
This day was the beginning of Creeping Charlie's reign of terror.
And for the next eleven and a half years, when I was sure no one was watching, I've set the mower blade to it's lowest setting and mowed Charlie until there wasn’t anything left but dust.
But the next morning Charlie always looks greener than ever and had clearly spread.
Over the years, I've poured all matter of liquid on Charlie, not excluding salt water, solvent, paint, and anything else that I thought might be toxic. But nothing has ever had any effect on Charlie.
Getting rid of Charlie became an obsession and I've lay awake on countless nights, pondering as to how I could, once and for all, rid my yard of what google calls:
“an uninvited guest” and a “perineal broadleaf weed that demands attention”
This past spring, after thirty years of trying to grow grass, I threw in the towel and let Creeping Charlie have his way. As of this week, Charlie controls around twenty five percent of our back yard and clearly has it's sight set on total world domination.
But in recent days, I’m gradually warming up to Creeping Charlie.
It’s much more attractive than mud, mows easily, and now that I stopped spraying it with carburetor cleaner, it’s a very nice shade of green. In fact, it’s beautiful in some ways, especially after a rain.
As I looked out over our yard, I couldn’t help but think of her and her passion for gardening.
But my thoughts of her that afternoon soon drifted far beyond her love of gardening. I realized that her gardening was also representative of another gift that she had.
You see, Joe Ann could look at something that anyone else might see as undesirable, or worthless… just a weed, and see beauty in it.
And that’s the same way she saw her family, as well as those she claimed along the way just because she loved them.
It didn’t matter to her what condition we happened to be in, or what anyone else thought about us. Our value to Joe Ann was based on the unseen. She possessed an ability to dig us out of whatever mire we were currently planted in and transplant us into better soil where we could heal, grow, and eventually thrive again.
In her lifetime, she has turned many weeds into gardens.
I met Joe Ann when I was 17 years old. I went to the family home for the very first time for courting purposes and met Joe Ann and 5 other young ladies who lived at the house in Rex Georgia.
I sang, played guitar and some of the worst banjo picking you’ll ever hear and THEY LOVED IT! ...Especially the banjo picking…
I could do no wrong! I was like a one-man boy band and I was positive that I had found the promised land!
At the time, I wasn’t quite sure which one of the girls I would eventually marry but I knew pretty quick that Joe Ann would someday be my mother in law.
On the night that Dede and I were married, our pastor referred to some scripture from the Book of Ruth during our wedding vows. It didn’t occur to me until this past week that this story of devotion is also about mother in laws.
The story begins in Jerusalem and centers around a Husband and Wife named Elimelech and Naomi. They had two sons. The Bible says there was a great famine in Jerusalem so Elimelech moved his family to the country of Moab where living conditions were considerably better.
Sometime after the move, Elimelech died and the two sons married girls they met in Moab. One married a girl named Orpah, and the other married a girl named Ruth.
Ten years later, both sons died, leaving Naomi and her two daughters in laws to fend for themselves. After some time passed, Naomi got wind that the famine was finally over and decided that she would return to Jerusalem.
As Naomi sat out on her journey, the daughter in laws followed her. Somewhere along the way, Naomi turned to them and said:
“Go back to your mothers’ homes. And may the Lord reward you for your kindness to your husbands and to me. 9 May the Lord bless you with the security of another marriage.”
So, just like any other family when on a road trip, they pulled over to the side of the road to argue for a while. Eventually, sister Orpah said goodbye and left.
Ruth, on the other hand, stood her ground and made this vow to her mother in law:
“Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God.
My wedding vows were modeled after this vow that Ruth made to Naomi and in general, this is the way that Dede and I have always rolled.
And it took a while, but over time, Joe Anne, along with everyone else in her extended family, became my people.
But of far greater significance to me is that - I became one of Her people.
A Big Ole group of brothers, sisters, children, step children, foster children, friends, and all of their families, ...and some folks that we honestly don't know where they came from...
We are her people.
Her love for us is our common bond. We might disagree on anything else but all of us knew that Joe Ann loved us.
We are also connected because we’re all wounded in some degree by this loss...by this thing that has happened to us.
Her four children have had to say a long and difficult goodbye over the last 7 years. Each, for their own season, have bore the responsibility of looking out for Joe Ann's well being while continuing to be everything they needed to be for their own families.
Brothers and sisters and their families, many of whom I feel like I know well… not because of time I have spent with them, but because they were so often the topic of stories and conversations. Joe Ann clearly and dearly loved all of them.
When friends were happy, Joe Ann had joy for them. In grief, she grieved with them. For Joe Anne, any line between family and friend quickly blurred.
And finally, her grandchildren…What an awesome grandmother. She had an amazing ability to easily tolerate 110 decibels of goofy as if it were a whisper. In a chaotic room full of twenty screaming children, Joe Ann could make every one of them feel like they were special, all at the same time.
In the last few days, many have spoken about Joe Ann’s “open door policy”. You may be down on your luck with no where to stay, no food, and no money, but you were never homeless. There was always room for one more.
Indeed, we are all wounded.
But we know what happens when we don’t properly treat a wound. Just ask cousins Jake and Mitchell what happens when you wreck a motorcycle you aren't supposed to be riding and punch a 2” deep hole in your leg and don’t tell anybody because you don’t want to lose the motorcycle that you never had to begin with.
Our wounds can become infected. Our wounds can overcome us. We scar.
So, our legacy is not to suffer together, rather, to begin a healing process together through our memories. We can lift each other up through photographs, stories, and songs. We can do this the way that Joe Ann would want us to do it.
And we can rejoice and celebrate over the blessing that our great God bestowed on each one of us through Joe Ann's life.
As difficult as it may seem to grasp, Joe Ann’s life on earth went according to God’s plan. At times, I personally wanted to pick up the remote control and change the channel and watch some other plan.
In fact, a year and six months ago when we came down for my father in laws funeral, I challenged God face to face.
When we arrived at Palm Coast for the funeral, we went over to Grand Oaks, a nursing home, where Joe Ann was being cared for, to see her. It had been around six months since we had last visited.
It was a difficult day for her and I was frankly shocked at what I saw. I sucked it up for as long as I could and then I excused myself and headed for the car. I made it about half way to the car before I began to sob. When I finally got to the car I asked God, point blank, to show me the purpose of one more day for Joe Ann’s life.
I got my answer the next day.
Several of the Grand kids had gathered in Palm Coast for the funeral (and God only knows what else) and were planning to go visit their Mammy. I felt like I should try and gently prepare my boys for what I thought they were about to see so I did my best, choosing the best words I possibly could.
The next day, everyone arrived and when we walked into her room Joe Ann was 100% Mammy... as if it were 12 years ago. She was smiling from ear to ear. She talked and laughed and, just like any other grandmother, asked all of them nosy questions. She knew everyone by name, including my granddaughter who she had only heard about and never met.
It was a very special day for all. And after that there were other special days that followed. “My plan” would have cheated myself and others out of some real blessings that God had in store for us.
In the Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, he speaks of the Fruits of Spirit. This is a biblical term that sums up nine attributes of a Born-again believer, empowered by the Holy Spirit, that reflect the characteristics of Jesus through our lives.
It reads:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
These fruits were easily recognizable in Joe Ann’s life.
In Acts Chapter 16 a Roman jailer ask Paul and Silas a simple question.
“Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved”
In Romans 10 Paul Writes:
If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved.
In the last few years, every time we saw Joe Ann she talked about Jesus and going to Heaven. She has openly declared the essential Gospel as defined in these scriptures.
In later days, she often spoke of this time without dread, without fear, and with confidence and expectation. In her final hours, she verbally called out to God.
Today, through this evidence, we can find joy. We can grieve with confidence…A confidence that our Mammy lives today as a receiver of God’s eternal promises. She is pain free, reunited with others who have also left us behind, and knows life, splendor, and riches that we cannot imagine.
And through a relationship with Jesus, we can look forward to the fulfillment of the same promises for our own lives and know that we will see Joe Ann again someday!
In the meanwhile –
“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
John 13:34
Peace
