A Woman of Conviction
When you marry you get a great many things you never saw coming. Some good, some not so much, but each thing and person becomes part of your evolution.
When I married Keith, Beverly Rooney, his mother, was part of the package. This essay is not about our relationship. It is about the things I saw her live that forever changed the way I think, love and behave.
I met Beverly Rooney when I was twelve. I became a frequent recipient of her hospitality. She managed a humble home. Her yard was noisy with three rambunctious sons and their friends. The driveway was perpetually full of vehicles in various stages of repair and her phone seemed to ring continuously with neighbors seeking comfort and assurance, because Beverly was a nurse, an LPN, and she had a gift for gentleness and healing. Her house wasn’t a showcase, her lawn wasn’t manicured but her table was full and laughter filled the air.
Beverly had an incredibly difficult childhood that included poverty and neglect. She didn’t equate the significance of this, she just survived. Her father was drafted into the Army, serving in Europe during World War II. Her mother joined the work force and Beverly became a surrogate homemaker. When she should have been playing ‘house’ she was keeping house.
I gained a higher family security clearance when I married Beverly’s son. I saw some things and seeing is knowing. Beverly worked endless hours. She left home before the sun rose, returning long after dark. She left breakfast on the stove, fed some livestock, but without fail, spent time in her Bible and devotionals before driving away to her day’s labors.
Each summer Beverly’s bountiful garden was shared among family and friends. In the winter, she kept an overnight bag packed in case the weather turned. She was prepared to stay at the hospital and serve when others couldn’t.
A day came when Beverly’s elderly, invalid father had to be placed into an extended care facility. As a veteran in an era of failed VA services, there was no expectation of quality comfort care. In response, each evening when Beverly clocked out at the hospital, she drove twenty-five additional miles in the opposite direction from home to give her father a warm bath, a warm meal and a warm human connection.
I was aware that this father had been an abusive alcoholic, leaving his wife and children destitute and disgraced. It bothered me to see Beverly drive herself to exhaustion for one such as he. So, unable to keep the opinions of my youth to myself I said, “I don’t know why any alcoholic father deserves the loyalty of his child.” Beverly didn’t scold, she just quietly said, “I knew him before the war. He came back broken and sick. I don’t blame him.” Okay……I continued, “Why do you kill yourself for a man that didn’t care for you?” Her gentle voice explained, “When I see Jesus, He won’t ask me how my dad treated me, He’ll ask me how I treated my dad. He commanded, Honor your father. And I will.”
That shut me up and changed me forever. When I see my Savior’s face He will not ask me how everything went down here or if everyone played nicely…….I also will account for how I treated others.
By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35.
My mother-in-law wasn’t perfect, but she was a woman of exceptional integrity and conviction I know that on the day that swallowed her children in incredible sorrow, she stood before her LORD and He said, “Well done my beautiful child, come and rest in Me.”
Gretchen
