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Dedication
The evening sun was beginning to lower over the trees as I peered through the window listening to Mother who was on the phone across the room. Her voice was low and solemn as she gathered information from a Christian clinic that specialized in emotional distress. I listened as she softly answered the appropriate questions and attempted to explain our situation.
I became absorbed in my own thoughts as I gazed intently at the now shadowed shrubbery in the backyard. “I’m so glad this is me,” I heard my inner voice declare, “. . .and so sorry for her.” I knew somewhere deep inside that I would eventually make it. She had no way of knowing that. I couldn’t tell you when or how much worse it would have to get. I just knew I would come out on the other side. . .somehow. She saw her daughter in an impossible situation in desperate need of help. She would have traded places with me countless times if she could. . .but this was my battle.
She hung up the phone with a scratch pad in her hand where she had noted the cost of admittance; it was far outside of our reach. We’ve spoken since of the advantage of having limited resources. Had it been possible, we would have taken a short cut. . .and may have missed God.
During my confused and distraught teenage years, it would be a common occurrence to hear my bedroom door creak open. Mother would slip across the floor and slowly crawl onto the bed to lie beside me as I cried. Not a word would be spoken; she would just be there. Many years later as I wept through the night for reasons of a more serious nature, I often noticed the empty side of the bed. It would have been comforting to have her there, silently making her presence known. But this was my night, reserved for God and me.
I heard my brother sarcastically accusing her one day of loving me the most. We were both taken by surprise when she turned the conversation down a serious trail and responded, “Skeeter, I’ve had to watch her closer. There have been times when I opened her door not knowing if she would be alive or not.” Looking back I deeply regret that she ever had to open such a door.
I never felt I had to prove anything to Mother. From the first song I ever wrote, she may as well have called me “Dottie.” She feared that I might lose my song in the shuffle of sorrow that came my way. Little did either of us realize that the music had just begun.
She began a battle with breast cancer in 1993 but enjoyed several years of health following her surgery until the summer of ’99. We then would learn that the fight was on again. During her illness I’ve been comforted with knowing that I’ve always felt privileged to have her for a mother. I didn’t just decide she was special when she got sick.
Many times during my darker days I would find myself feeling guilty. I knew the world was full of young abandoned mothers, just like me. But they did not have the advantage of a praying mom to run along beside them in their race.
I had given her a manuscript of this book before it went to print and asked her to be sure I had gotten the facts right. I wanted to confirm some of the stories from my childhood to know that it happened as I had remembered. The next morning I picked up the phone to hear her announce, “You sure know how to mess up somebody’s day!” She said, “I haven’t thought of some of those stories for years.” Then she continued to express her only complaint. “I wish you’d tell them somewhere in there that you had a mother!” She may have missed the moments of smothering in a closet or watching the sunrise at dawn. Still, make no mistake. . .she was there.
Therefore, I dedicate this book to my mother, Mary Lou Jones, knowing that without her my stories could have ended in a much different way.
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