I’ll Miss You Most of All

The call I had been expecting came last Sunday morning at 6:30 AM. It was my dear friend, Bob, with the news that his mother, Margaret, had died. She’d suffered a massive stroke twelve days previously, and her entire medical team, everyone really, was astounded that she held on as long as she did. I hung up the phone after talking with Bob for a few minutes, and was still lying in bed trying to digest the news when the strangest imagery entered my mind. It was a scene from The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy was saying goodbye to her dear friends from over the rainbow as she prepared to go home to Kansas. She said to one of them, “I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

What a strange thing to think of, I thought to myself. Why wasn’t I running a mental slide show of my memories of Margaret? I actually remember the first time I met her. It was almost 40 years ago. She and Bob’s father dropped by his house one evening. I happened to be there along with some other friends.  Bob had already told me so much about these two beautiful, talented people that I was expecting rock stars. They did not disappoint. While Bob’s dad was a silver fox, his mother was a force of nature. Together they were dazzling.  But in the moments after Bob’s phone call that Sunday morning, I didn’t think about the many visits I had had with her over the years, or the times I had eaten at her table or the songs we had sung together or her autobiography of which she had given me a sneak peak. My first thought wasn’t about Margaret. It was about Dorothy.

There were similarities. Dorothy was from the farmlands of Kansas. Margaret was born in a backwater place called Clyde, GA. Both had been plucked from obscurity and landed somewhere new and exciting. Margaret had moved with her family to Richmond Hill, GA, where she became the protégé of auto magnate Henry Ford. He picked her out of her high school graduating class to go to business school and then work for him in a secretarial position that would lead to a 30-plus year career. It was in Richmond Hill that Margaret met and married Bob’s father, and there she lived a better life than she ever imagined possible. Of course, there were some darker hours, too. Perhaps no wicked witches or flying monkeys but certain challenges that she always faced head on.  Then it occurred to me. Like Dorothy, Margaret showed all those close to her what it was to possess strength of mind, a loving heart and fierce courage.  She owned those qualities and she made you want to seek them for yourself.

But last Sunday, God called Margaret home. And she realized that’s where she needed to go, even though it would mean leaving behind those she loved here, especially Bob, whom she loved absolutely. Yes, he would be the one she would miss most of all. But she clicked the heels of her ruby slippers together and made her grand exit. Through her entire life and even in those last days Margaret demonstrated the importance of a life well lived.  By example, she encouraged us to look inside ourselves and endeavor to become a little wiser, a little more compassionate and a lot more courageous. And if we knew what was good for us, we did exactly that.