ON RE-READING MY MOTHER’S MEMOIRS: AN EASTER MEDITATION

by Madison U. Sowell

            The Latin phrase per aspera ad astra translates “through hardships to the stars” and signifies that one may reach great heights (the stars) by working through and overcoming hard things. On this Easter Sunday, when we celebrate Jesus Christ’s triumph over death and what that means for the world collectively and for each of us individually, I would like to share some spiritual moments I had while re-reading my late mother’s memoirs and writings this Easter weekend. I learned, among other things, that I was christened on an Easter Sunday. On that sacred day my mother and father committed to rearing me as a Christian, something my parents did to the best of their ability.

This blog contains three excerpts from my mother’s life story; two of these describe truly “hard things,” and the third is her closing testimony. The words are hers (slightly abridged) and come from This Is My Story: The Memoirs of Ora Hosey Blair. The title alludes to a favorite hymn of hers, “This Is My Story; This Is My Song; Praising My Savior, All the Day Long.”

FIRST EXCERPT (the death of her mother, Rose Hosey, when my mother was six, and the difference one teacher made): “The day finally came when I was six years old. Mama bought me a penny pencil and a Big Chief tablet. I was so happy I could hardly wait from one day until the next to go to school, even though it was six weeks away. Mama was so sick with malaria that she couldn’t take care of me nor dress me properly. Each morning after I got to school my teacher Miss Leska would put me on her lap and take a hair pin and pick the tangles out of my hair. I really didn’t know my Mama was so sick. One day when I got home from school, Daddy told us to go in and tell Mama good-bye because he was going to take her to the Baptist Hospital in Memphis. She took my hand and said, ‘Be a good girl,’ and then she took my older brother Bill’s hand and started to cry. She knew she would never come home. She didn’t. She died on December 11, 1918. I remember we were still all in bed, and Aunt Annabelle came to the door and said, ‘Children, Sister Rose is dead.’ I think a part of me died too because things were never the same after that.

Daddy brought Mama’s body home. I remember she was in a beautiful gray casket with a sliding glass top. The casket was placed on a stand in Daddy’s bedroom. I wasn’t tall enough to see in. Miss Leska and I were sitting in the swing on our front porch when she asked me if I would like to see Mama. I said yes, and we went to the casket. Miss Leska lifted me up so I could see my mother. I cried. The casket was put on a train, and Daddy accompanied the body to Moss, Mississippi, where the family plot is. I remember walking back from the train station with my cousin Frances; both us were crying. None of the children could go to south Mississippi because of a lack of train fare. I think Miss Leska had a great influence on helping me to get going again. She was good to me and would let me go out to play when it wasn’t recess.”

SECOND EXCERPT (the death of my mother’s first child): “In January of 1936  I became pregnant. We were all elated! It was the most enjoyable nine months of my life to that point. Everyone was so helpful and treated me like a queen. Finally, October 3rd I was ready to go to the hospital, but Dr.  Meeker said, ‘wait until tomorrow,’ as my paints were slight. October 4th I went in and around 11 p.m. my precious first baby was born. Dr. Meeker had started a new process of delivering babies, and two babies had already died from his method of delivery. He would push the baby back into the womb and bring it out feet first. I had asked him not to deliver my baby like that and he had said he wouldn’t. My father [an M.D.] and Dr. Otey [a family friend] were in the delivery room, and when the baby’s head was going to show Dr. Meeker started his procedure of turning the baby around. Dr. Otey said, ‘let the baby come on as normal,’ but Dr. Meeker paid no attention. When he turned it around, it took a breath and its lungs were filled with mucus. My husband, Dr. Otey, my father, and Dr. Meeker and the nurses worked on him for two hours to no avail. Without my knowing it, my baby I had looked forward to died.

I woke up about midnight or 1 a.m. and saw Dr. Otey sitting at the foot of my bed, and I asked, ‘What did I have?’ He said, ‘a beautiful boy.’ I fell back asleep and woke up and heard babies crying. The nurses were taking them to the mothers to be nursed and fed. They didn’t bring me my baby. The crying stopped, and I rang my bell or turned on the nurse’s light. A nurse came in, and I said, ‘I want to see my baby.’ She very bluntly and cruelly said, ‘your baby didn’t live!’ I went to pieces, and in two minutes she gave me a shot and said, ‘your husband will be here shortly.’ I pleaded, ‘please put me on another floor so I can’t hear the babies cry.’ So they did move me to another floor. Flowers began to pour in. My room looked like a florist shop. There was not a single space to put another plant, so they began to fill the hall. All my family said they had never seen a more beautiful baby—perfect features. The sad part for me was that they would not let me see him and hold him. Dr. Meeker was barred from the hospital, as mine was the third baby to die from being delivered the same way.”

How was it that my mother had the courage and will to live, to give birth to three more sons and see them reared to adulthood? The answer is simple: her faith in God never wavered.

EXCERPT  3 (her testimony): “At night I have my daily devotional by reading from the Upper Room. I think I would like to close my memoirs by paraphrasing some thoughts I recently read in that religious publication. In my home I have early morning sunshine. Soon the sun disappears around the corner and stays away much of the day only to return late in the afternoon to let me enjoy the last rays of the evening sun. I see this as a picture of human life. The sun shines and then come the shadows or dark clouds. But behind the cloud is always the sun. It soon breaks through when I least expect it. Sometime I feel that God has turned away. I pray that at those times I shall never forget that His grace is always present and freely given. I should not be discouraged when the sun goes behind the clouds because I know God’s face will again shine upon me.”

Per aspera ad astra is a phrase that characterized my mother’s life. Anyone who met Ora quickly realized that she was positive, kind, loving, and altruistic. She never stopped praying; she never allowed the sorrow and pain of losing her mother and first child to become bitterness; she never stopped doing for and comforting others. Rather she exercised faith in God by continuing to go forward, confident that after the rainclouds departed the sun would shine again and that after death would come the resurrection from the dead. If she were alive today, she would testify that after the darkness of the current pandemic passes, the sun, which is always there, will shine once more and “the roses will bloom again” (one of her favorite expressions of comfort).