Isaiah 25:6-9
Revelation 7:9-17
John 14:1-6
It is never good to play favorites. This is sound advice when dealing with children, and I think it’s also true when working in a church. A priest ought not to have preferred parishioners; however, I must confess my friends, for if this is the mark, then I have surely missed it. You see, I always looked forward to visiting Florence Turpin with a secret joy rivaled by few others, and I guess now that is not such a secret. Whew, it feels better to get that off my chest.
Whenever I visited with Flo she wanted me to come over to give her a big hug. The hug was even bigger if I had brought her a beloved chocolate milkshake. These visits were so easy and fun because Dadaw, as she was known by her family, was the consummate host. Even if she was confined to a small room in a nursing facility, her over 30 years providing hospitality in the restaurant industry shined through. Every time it was like she was welcoming me to a newly renovated eatery. Of course, not every one of those visits was chipper.
Over the last few years Florence faced continuing health challenges with surgeries, multiple strokes, and memory loss. On top of these issues, Flo struggled with guilt, was often irritable, and always stubborn. Through it all though, she managed to stay herself. She was always authentically, genuinely, 100% Flo. And, quite often that meant that comedy was the way that she kept going.
Flo was funny. Like when she reflected on where she had learned how to feel guilty about things for far too long. She was long ago a Catholic girl with coke bottle thick glasses growing up on the Mississippi Delta, not exactly the best place to be Catholic or a girl or four-eyed. It was a world that valued so many things that she was not. So, Florence found a way to rise above by joking. She used to compare herself to Sammy Davis Jr. who famously said he had more strikes against him than ought to be allowed as he was "short, maimed, ugly,black, Jewish, gaudy, and uneducated." Florence may not have had as many strikes, but she nonetheless always kept fighting until she got her way.
Even when she was irritable, she found ways to make herself and others crack up. Like the times when she was upset with her neighbors at the Terrace. She would ask, “Why are there so many damn Baptists out here? Where are the Good Episcopalians? These people don’t know how to play Mexican Dominoes the right way... like they do at Riverside.”
And, her habit of stubbornly holding onto her way even when her children, and grandchildren, and other family and friends would try to convince her of another way was both challenging and impressive. One doesn’t run as many restaurants as she did without having the stubbornness of a mule. While she was not trying to be funny, there is something amusing to me about how Flo so willfully held to the belief that the last place she lived was always so much better than the place where she was currently living.
Natchez and the Mississippi Delta was her home for so long. And, the friendships she had there were lifelong bonds. The joy that Howard and her shared with others, especially as they went out to dinner and danced most Fridays nights revealed Flo’s fun-loving nature. But, after Howard’s death when she had to move to Decatur it seemed like she was always looking backwards.
She first lived at Riverside Senior Living, but there she missed Mississippi. Then she had to have some more serious care after some complications, so she moved to the Terrace… where she missed the friends, the food, and the Mexican Dominoes of Riverside. As her memory worsened she had to move to Summerford in Falkville, and there she missed the independence she had at the Terrace. What strikes me is that it’s hard to live life in reverse, always looking backwards. But, Florence missed her home, and towards the end I don’t think it was just her Mississippi home that she longed for.
Over the last few weeks Flo kept saying that she was seeing a man in a suit. No one else ever saw that man in a suit. Finally Dodie asked her who it was. Flo said it was her late husband Howard. Was she just hallucinating? I don’t think so.
I can’t be sure exactly what was happening. It’s hard to understand the Great Mystery that is God’s nature. But, maybe Flo kept seeing Howard because he was waiting for her to come home. Not to a home where she would look back and think it was better back then, but to a place where everything is perfect, like the feast on God’s Mountain in our reading from Isaiah, like in our Psalm walking along protected by the Good Shepherd, like in John’s Revelation when there’s no more hunger or thirst just fulfillment, like in John’s Gospel account when Jesus leads us all to our eternal home, like dancing and dinner down in Natchez on Friday night. That’s the home where Howard was taking Florence.
He was coming back to make sure Flo knew the way to the place where Christ leads us all. And, Flo kept looking past people around her these last few days, as though she was looking to that forever home where we will all one day reside in God’s infinite love. Christ shows us the way, the truth, and the life in how he lived, in how he died, and in how he rose again.
In her guilt and irritability and stubbornness I imagine that Flo, like the rest of us with our own faults, might have struggled with making that walk back home. Howard must have finally convinced her though that if she held out much longer they would have missed their dancing and dinner with all their friends last Friday night in their new eternal home. And, so Flo went home.
As we give Dadaw, Flo, Herb, Florence over to God who has always had her and always will have her, we look ahead to that day when we will all feast together on God’s Holy Mountain. When we will walk more closely with our Good Shepherd. When we will no longer hunger or thirst. When we will be together in God’s eternal home. When we know that we are all God’s favorite. And, there we can again dance and laugh and feast with Flo and all the others who go before us. Welcome home Flo. I know you will like this one the best!
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