"The warrior is dancing..."

One of my long-time friends, Andrew Lakin, has suffered the loss of his mother. She was an incredible lady. He sent me the words that he read at a "Celebration of Her Life". I was so impacted by them that I asked him if I could post them here. Prepare yourself to be moved...

Pen in hand
Poised at the paper
How to start
What to say
There aren’t enough pages or pens or days
To cover her brief years
Dear God
My Mother is gone
How can this be?
I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of grief
With just moments when I can kick to the surface
For a quick breath
My Joanne just met her
My children will never know her
How will they get by?
Grow up?
Without a tea party with their Nana

“Stop all the clocks”

Memories flood
Riding waves of emotion
The joy of the memories
Seized by the thought
That there aren’t going to be . . .
Any more

I remember as a child coming home from playing
With tears streaming down my face
Some neighborhood kids had been cruel to me
As I relayed my tale of woe to her
I remember she suddenly pulled out a pitcher
I asked what she was doing
“I’m making a pitcher of lemonade so we can take it over to those kids.”
What I thought, but did not say, was
“Like hell I am.”
What I said was,
“What? Haven’t you been listening to what I was just telling you? What they did to me and the names they called me?”
She started telling me about some dumb Bible verse about praying for your enemies, blessing them and not cursing them, blah - blah - blah, and how doing good is like pouring hot coals on their head, blah - blah - blah.
Then, standing at their stupid door, seeing their stupid, confused faces, as Mother cheerfully gave them the pitcher of ice-cold lemonade. I stood beside her with my arms folded as I “prayed” for my enemies – I prayed that God would actually show me the hot coals pouring out of heaven on their stupid heads.

I didn’t like it, but I never forgot it
That’s just one of many lessons I learned
From a woman who was not a teacher
She was my Mother
She was not the perfect mother
But she was perfect for us
A very imperfect family
She taught by not teaching
She was just living

The times she prayed for the cashier lady at the grocery store
With a line up of people behind us
A bag of apples in her one hand
And the lady’s hand in her other, bewildered and awestruck
She wasn’t doing it to teach Andrew something
She was just living
Just following

That’s how she lived
It was her actions
That made any words unnecessary

She knew she was going home
She stuck around long enough to make sure I was taken care of
She knew Joanne was my wife before I did
She was cocky about it
“I know,” she said, “because I’ve been praying for her since before you were born.”

“What can I pray for?”
Was probably Mother’s most uttered sentence;
Next in line would be “That needs some flowers.”

She was a lover and a warrior
A prayer warrior so formidable that the enemy tried to shut her up with depression for twelve years
And when God chose to free her from that,
Then they attacked her body
But they never succeeded in shutting her up
She was a juggernaut of prayer
And now…
Now they really have to look out
Cause now she’s free

Now the warrior is dancing
The music is loud
Her sword is sharp
Her leaps are high
And there is no stopping her now.