FRONT PORCH GOSPEL: Stopped me in my tracks

Good week to all. Welcome to the “front porch.”

Recently, I rehearsed the story you are about to read in a conversation with a friend from Little Rock. My friend Doug were talking after going for a long walk, and the story just popped up. I had to take a deep breath and pause a time or two to finish it. You’ll see why when you hear it.

I’ve told you of my mama’s setting sail gloriously On Oct. 3, 1973. Through the years, when I’ve dared to tell it, I left out a detail that, for some reason, stayed just out of my mind’s reach. I won’t leave it out today.

On that afternoon, I rushed home to Grandma’s house as soon as school let out. Grandma took care of Mama in the front bedroom of their brick home on Truitt the last several months of mom’s fight with the brain tumor. I had to rush home that day because I was to start a job across town over at the mill on Hillside. My mama Louise had worked at the Callaway Cotton Mill for a quarter of a century, but I don’t know if I ever went inside it. I waited outside the gate a hundred times for her to get off of work, but inside a mill was no place for a boy.

After just completing a summer of working on the bricklaying job with Red Williams, Brian Light and Doocy, and the rest of that “chain gang,” I had to lay aside my shovel, wheelbarrow and calloused, bleeding hands so I could take up my English and math books and begin my senior year at LaGrange High. After a month, I figured I needed some money, so a good gentleman at Hillside offered me a job. He knew Mama and Grandma and was more than happy to put me to work.

I rushed to Grandma’s house that day, gobbled down the lunch she had waiting for me, changed clothes, and rushed to the door to head to work. Being the first day on the job, I was in a bit more of a hurry than usual and wanted to be prompt. Besides, Red had taught me that summer that I’d better be on time if I knew what was good for me. To Red what was “good for me” was a tongue-lashing that would make you melt right there by the sand pile and make you want to crawl underneath a 70-pound bag of mortar mix. I learned pretty fast that it was best to be on time.

I told Grandma bye that Wednesday afternoon, Oct. 3, and rushed to the front door, reached for the door knob… and stopped.

Something stopped me right in my tracks. I’ll always believe that the Lord put a stop sign there for me at Grandma’s front door. Maybe an angel stood there with a flaming sword the way one stood in front of Balaam’s donkey back in the Old Testament, I don’t know.

I paused that day, just as I had to pause the other day as I told this story to my friend Doug. I stopped at the front door, turned, and walked in to see Mama before going to work. I even remember that I walked over to the far side of the bed. I suppose she was lying on her side facing the wall.

I leaned over and kissed her, and I told her I loved her – two things I did not do nearly enough in my life. I had always been more about wiping off kisses than administering them.

Then, I was then off to the cotton mill to do a similar work Mama had done for a lifetime as she supported four children. But I only spent four hours of my life in a cotton mill, all that night. Around 7:30 p.m., Mama took her journey. Shortly thereafter, my cousin Bruce Bailey came to the mill to tell me. He happened to see me through the window, and he hollered out the sad news. It had to be done, but that moment, too, seems frozen in time.

Since that day, I’ve thanked the good Lord many times for Mama and Grandma and all blessings handed down to me on the Georgia red clay that helped shape me. Among all the blessings, I have to include my utmost appreciation to the Lord for not letting me walk out the door that day without saying bye to Mama.

I don’t know if Mama knew I came in to her room that afternoon. In her coma she was gathering her things for her great journey. But, if the Lord be willing, I will tell her about it one day near a golden street. I am sure – even there – she won’t mind if I have to pause to gather myself along the way.

Coach Steven Bowen, a long-time Red Oak teacher and coach, now enjoys his time as a full-time writer and preacher of the gospel. In addition to his evangelistic travels, he works and writes for the Church of Christ of Red Oak at Uhl Road and Ovilla. Their worship times are 10 a.m. Sundays and 7:30 pm. Wednesdays. Email: coachbowen1984@gmail.com or call or text 972-824-5197.