A cousin of mine just passed away. Becky was a great lady, and I’ll miss her a lot. She was also a writer, having written for farm magazines for years. She also wrote children’s books and books about people’s encounters with Bigfoot. But one of the things I will miss the most is the way she could find something positive in the hardest of situations.
Becky was about three years younger than me, while her oldest brother, Kelly, was born only a year after me. When we were very young, Becky would tag along with Kelly and me, and I just viewed her as Kelly’s annoying little sister. But as time went on, my opinion changed.
It wasn’t that she didn’t still tag along with us, but her spunk and willingness to try almost anything, grew on me. She could do nearly anything we could, and sometimes even better. As we grew into our teenage years, we became even better friends.
But as life often does, our paths diverged when we went our separate ways to college and other things that took us away from home and family. We both married and moved far away from each other. We seldom connected, and it was usually through other family members that I learned what was happening in her life.
I didn’t know the challenges she faced in life. She had eight children, but her marriage wasn’t the best. To say her husband wasn’t kind to her or the children is an understatement. I didn’t know that until I heard about her divorce. We lived far apart, so we still never saw each other.
Then things changed. She moved to southern Idaho, and though we were still hundreds of miles away from each other, we took the time to catch up on what our families were doing. Then, one day, she called and asked if I could help her family move to a town only about forty miles from where we lived. I was glad to help, and on the appointed day, my wife, Donna, and I rented a trailer and headed down to help Becky move.
My pickup is an old flatbed. I have built wood sides on it, and frankly, it looks like something right out of Beverly Hillbillies. It took all day to load the truck and trailer. Once we got almost everything on and stacked high above the cab, we found an old recliner that family members couldn’t bear to leave behind. I got on top, and they hoisted it up, and I strapped it right on top of the load. We could have been the very model of that old sitcom if we only had a granny to sit in the chair.
Becky squeezed into the truck cab with Donna and me, and her children, with the oldest driving, packed into the car. All the way to their new place, we shared stories from our lives. Never once did I hear a complaint. Instead of talking about her divorce, she referred to it as her new start in life. Instead of referring to the job she just lost as downsizing, she talked about a chance for new employment opportunities.
Her death this week was unexpected, but all her children made it to the funeral. In visiting with one of her daughters about how her mother was always positive, I loved what she told me. She said the divorce was hard, and her dad got almost everything monetary. However, Becky got what she wanted most: the children. But with little money, they found themselves homeless.
“We were definitely homeless,” her daughter said. “But mom called it camping.”
I smiled. That was Becky, always finding the positive in everything. I’m sure she is making her little corner of heaven just a little brighter.
