She was a warrior. She faced illness and pain and surgery and treatments and hair loss and wickedly harsh medicine with optimism, hope and joy. She found no pleasure in the attention that was necessary for her care. She would have much preferred to be the servant, not the served. Sunday morning she suffered a massive stroke. Tuesday evening, after her family mercifully withdrew life support, she officially passed away. When I visited her in that CCU room with machines keeping her "alive," I sensed that she had already left this phase of her eternal journey, and that she was whole and healthy again.
I am no theologian. I do not pretend to know when souls leave bodies. I do not know where they go from here. I only know that her indomitable spirit was not present in the body, so familiar, lying in that bed. Forgive me when I scoff, too, at the notion that she was hovering above, out of body, watching the proceedings going on in that room. That would have been a punishment too hard to bear...watching the unspeakable grief and pain of her child, her husband, her siblings, her friends, and others who dearly loved her.
She was my cousin. We grew up together on Saturdays at my grandmother's. We played Rock School, 1 2 3 Redlight, Mother May I, Fruit Basket Turnover, and Poor Kitty. We made inedible goulash from Dutch Cleanser and other chemicals. We ate thimble biscuits that looked like little dirty toes. We learned our colors from a Tiffany chandelier made of stained glass fruit. We learned math skills from flash cards stuck on the kitchen wall. We perused the Lone Ranger scrapbook over and over. We played house outside. We played school inside. We shared ambrosia; she ate the coconut and I age the oranges. We walked to the store and spent our dimes on candy, always wondering how her twin brother ended up with more candy than we. It took a while, but we learned that he always got an extra nickle because he was the only boy. We swang on the porch swing. As we got older, we discussed the facts of life, and let me say, for the longest time we truly did not have our "facts" straight.
As we grew, we lost touch with one another except through our parents. I married very young. She married later. I had children fairly early. Her daughter came to her a bit later. Our lives just became a bit different. I do not remember exactly when our separate paths merged again. I remember walking with her as she started the adoption process of her precious Sarah. Maybe that was it. I just do not remember for, truly, she has always been part of me.
Twelve years ago, we spent two weeks together in Boston. She was beginning the first stage of a stem cell transplant. In her mind, I wore the title "caretaker," but in truth, we took care of each other. It was a bonding time for cousins reunited. She attacked that process with the faith of a child. It was the beginning of a raging battle that she fought for all those years. She embraced with relish the respites she found from the fight. She was blessed with a childlike wonder at the world. She had a childlike love for everyone around her, and as a result she was greatly loved herself.
There is a big difference between childlike and childish. She had not a childish bone in her body. She did not complain. She did not pout. She did not rail against God. She did not give up. She did not cave in. She put her make up on. She fixed her hair. She smiled. She inquired as to the well-being of you and your family. She fought valiantly. She has won her victory.
Martha Binkley Hains, forever known as A'chie to her family, will be greatly missed. Her departure from this phase of our eternal journey leaves us grieved. We would have loved to have been able to travel together a while longer, but it was not to be. We must take time to mourn our loss, but we will not honor her if we stay mired in our sadness.
So for today, I wish you sweet memories, people to love and inspire you, and I wish you
blessings
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