She Took a Long Breath and she was gone

Home finally from what seemed to be a very long journey. I don't understand what just happened. I thought if i stood there by her side that i would be able to see the angels come for her but it was not powerful in any way. She took a long breath and pushed it from her body and she was gone. I found myself holding mama without the ability to let go. It seemed like it was taking forever with the uncertainty of when ? But at four on Sunday I had them take everything off of her and place the pain pump on her and she died at 1:34 am. Her last words came days ago when she said I love you to my daddy. She has uttered words since but the last clear words she spoke were I love you to her boy. Her life can be summed up in those words. She lived 80+ years and the last 12 of those we were lucky, no...blessed to have her be part of our lives. The past 15 hours with her gave me one last burst of strength from the woman that gave birth to the most important man in my life. My daddy it turns out is not only the best daddy ever, second only to mike Baisden who is without a doubt the best father I have ever known, but my daddy is by far the best son I have ever known, second only to the son of god. I'm tired now...

 — at Linkous House Bed & Breakfast.

My Mama Chris

She is stubborn and determined and beautiful and tired from her journey. She has the most beautiful skin I have ever seen on a woman. At 80+ years of age she is still a pretty thing to look at. Her hair is silver and her fingernails are perfect. The index finger on her right hand is so bent from use that it looks like the back leg of a puppy. I pray I never forget that crooked finger. 

She didn't raise my daddy. But she gave life to him. The 80 some odd years she has lived on this Earth she has never known the intimacy and true touch of a "loved one" until she met her boy. Some 50 years after having given birth to him she came back and gave him life !

I guess I look at her and my daddy like a fairy tale. They are so in love with one another. Not even the normal love of a mother and child who are always together but a love born into him and thru her so strong that it searched out the other for nearly 60 years until they found one another again.

I love my daddy the way that they love each other. She opens her eyes and she is helpless. Her body has done all that it came into the world to do. Her breathing is labored and short and today she had another stroke and seizures and physically she can't do much more. It's been a hard day for her. I'd almost say the hardest of her life but I know that the hardest day was the day that she had to give my daddy, her boy away all those years ago.

I don't know a lot about what her life was before but I do know with confidence that the last 12 years that she has lived in my daddy's house have been the happiest years of her life. 


She opens her beautiful eyes now...she...her....the person who lives inside the weak and fragile body that is on the outside....my Mama Chris peeks out those eyes and with what energy she has left she sees the doctors and nurses and me even and there is an empty look on her face that only changes at the moment that my father, her baby boy, comes into her line of sight.

Right at that moment you see more than a body laying there. You see her soul. You see Love. Love in its purest form. Love so deep that I believe she won't let go. She is holding on for one more kiss and one more "I love you, momma".

There are not droves of people to line the streets of belfry when she dies. I'm not sure we will have more than a single night at the funeral home or possibly in my home to honor her life she knows so few people. I reach my hand in to hold hers to satisfy my need to touch her and my need to feel comfort but I know that she is so not used to the touch of a hand beyond the hand of my daddy's love for her that it almost feels as if she can't understand why I am holding onto her.

I can hardly contain the buckets of tears when my daddy holds her and cries while thanking her for coming to live with him 12 years ago. Telling her, trying to tell her how much he loves her.

I am setting here wishing she would go on into the next place. Why ? Why doesn't she close her eyes and let go ? But I know that the reason is the very statement that I said at the start....she is stubborn and determined !!!! And beautiful !!!

And I will forever be her stubborn and determined granddaughter !

Another day with my daddy

Tonight as I walked out of the home that I was raised in I stopped to close the gate. The silhouette in the window was my daddy setting in his chair. I took a moment to watch the lights inside shine bright and ponder on his breath and the pounding of his heart. I could almost hear it from the driveway thru the walls of the house and down the path that he had shoveled only two days before when he had the heart attack.

It is no secret that I am a Daddy's girl. If you know me at all you know that I am. I can hardly make it thru a conversation with anyone about anything that I don't mention it. LOL

Two days ago the phone rang and the call sent me into panic. Your daddy had a heart attack. Those words didn't really register. What ? My daddy ? Panic !!! Fear !!! Terror !!! A Heart Attack ???




Since I was a little girl there has never been anything or anyone that I looked at with more love and respect and worship than I do my father. He has impressed on me a sense of everything that I consider in a man.

My father is strong. My father is brave. My father is Beautiful. My father is funny. My father is flirty. My father is Talented. My father is Handy. My father is Stubborn. My father is Determined. My father is so many things....

When my toilets break and I find myself with a wrench in my hand and I fix it I know that I am able because I am my fathers daughter. When I look at something and I need to repair it I look at it through my daddy's eyes and I figure it out because I have spent my whole life under his feet watching him and learning from him and I am handy because of him.

I have looked up the side of a mountain and known that It was more than I was able to climb and I went on  the journey anyway because I needed to stand at the top and look down and know that I can do anything I set my mind to because I am John Hackney's girl.

My daddy said to me at the hospital over and over again that I needed to go home. There is no need in me setting here doing nothing but looking at him he would say. My answer would be, Yes there is. I won't ever regret the minutes I spent with you. I will only regret the moments with you that I missed.

When I was a child my daddy was tough. He wasn't a perfect father. He worked more than he should have and he  made loads of mistakes. I never saw those. I just saw my daddy. The world. The Universe.

What will my life be when he is gone ? How will I survive ?

I stopped at the gate and I looked back at the house and I saw him there in the window where he belonged and I couldn't help but look to the sky and stand still in the cold brisk night and speak aloud a thank you to God. To the creator of this wonderful man. A thank you for the sound of his beating heart. A plea made once again for just another day with my daddy.

This hankie was given to me the day that I was baptized. Chuck May handed it to me as I walked into the creek at the mouth of Meathouse on March 29th, 1996.

It was carried by Gary when he was baptized September 27, 1996 and by our son Aaron when he was baptized on July 12, 1998.

My brother Dee carried it into the water when he was baptized on Jan 2, 2000 and My brother Tatar carried it into the water when he was baptized on April 30, 2000.

Gary carried it April 18, 1999 when he preached his first message and the night that Canada FWB Church voted to send him to be ordained November 18, 2000 he carried it and on his Ordination Day December 9, 2000.

Many Many times I had it anointed with oil and prayed over and carried it with me to the altar to beg God for the salvation of my daddy. I marked a spot on it and claimed in my mind that someday I would place it into Dads hands and he would carry it with him into the water to be baptized by Gary and Dee.

That is a dream that I still pray for. This hankie is certainly one of my most loved possessions and is kept in a fire safe where I hope to someday place it in the hands of my brothers children and Mikey for major events in their lives. I carried it the day that Aaron was married June 4, 2011.

The most remarkable thing about the hankie is that It was brand new when Chuck handed it to me. I will never forget him saying to me "Its a new one, I promise" Chuck has since passed away and I know the world is worse off because he is not in it :(

The wear that you see on the edges and the hole that you see in the folds and all of the tatter on it is not from 12 years of time. The moment that I climbed out of the water with it in my hands it looked that way. One might say that it sounds untrue but it is the case. It went in whole and new and came out this way. I need to have it framed flat and placed in the safe but only after I get to sign my Daddy's name to it the day that he is baptized.