Requiem for Greatness

On January 10, 2015, this world suffered a tragic loss. Virginia Kathryn Cox left this world to be with God. Her departure was peaceful and without pain, though her loss will be impossible to overcome. She was my mother, and when she left she left a chasm that will always and ever be empty.

Kat Cox loved and she was loved. She loved God, her family, teaching and the Girl Scouts. She was beloved by all who had the fortune to know her well and respected by so, so many more. The actions of her life will resonate and echo in the futures of millions of people who never even heard her name.

Kat Cox, my mother, was both a champion and a pioneer. In her younger years, even before graduating high school, she was an entrepreneur. She graduated high school and attended college and eventually earned both a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s Degree. In a time when women simply did not have careers she had not one, but two! She worked as a teacher and she taught four languages: English, French, Spanish and German. Her German class wasn’t too popular because she taught it, in college, at the end of World War II.

Throughout her life, my mother loved and supported the Girl Scouts. She was one but she soon moved from being a Girl Scout into being a Girl Scout leader and volunteer. Even when her paying job was elsewhere, her heart was with the Girl Scouts. In 1979 she elected to leave her job teaching and begin working full-time for the Girl Scouts. She eventually became the Executive Director of the Conifer Council until her retirement at age 75 and her actual retirement… at age 78!

Finally, my mother believed. She believed in God and was active in church, she believed in teaching and was always going the extra mile there, and she believed in helping people. She worked hardest for people who needed. She made sure that the girls who needed it made it to Girl Scout Camp, she made sure students who needed a teacher to care about them got that, and she always worked to ensure that her family needed for nothing. Most significantly, Kat Cox worked for women. She did not demand her rights or whine about not having them, she went out into the world and took them! Because of her and the precious few like her, women in America today can routinely apply for and expect to receive any job anywhere they want.

At 12:50 am on January 10, 2015 this sad world lost a treasure and heaven gained one. And, praise God, my mother received the rest she so overwhelmingly earned.

-matt

Important Things

WARNING: Strong emotional content ahead.

I haven’t been online for over a week now. My dad, who turned 83 last Friday, went into the hospital last Saturday with a really bad case of pneumonia. Believe it or not it’s the first time in his life he’s ever been hospitalized. He was running a consistent fever between 102 and 104 – not good – and his blood oxygen was down to 86% – very not good.

I’ll skip to the important part: he’s fine and the doctors are amazed at his good health, current circumstances notwithstanding. He should be home tomorrow or Tuesday, none the worse for wear and, perhaps, more inclined to go to the doctor when he should. I give God all the glory in his recovery and survival. God healed me in 2011 and he healed my dad in 2014.

This brings me to my point. As I was sitting in the hospital watching the man who had, for all my life, been a pillar of certainty and strength laying on a bed, too weak to walk and losing his breath when he moved to sit up on the edge of the bed I re-realized what is important and what isn’t.

I want many things. I want people to download and use my MathTools. I want people to buy my books. I want pizza and chocolate, I want nice things for myself and my kids. All of that, though, is NOTHING against having my family; my mom, my dad, my wife and my kids. All the money in the world is ashes and dust compared to the time we have with the ones we love and who love us.

How easy is it to get lost in the minutiae of day-to-day existence and to lose sight of why we exist from day to day? How easy is it to allow some trivial, meaningless bullshit to come between us and our loved ones? How easy is it to simply assume our loved ones will always be there? It absolutely tears my heart to shreds when I see children hating their parents or parents driving away their children. It rips me apart to see bone-dumb useless stupidity come between people.

PARENTS: Forgive your children and never let pass an opportunity to tell them you love them. They will make mistakes. They will be stubborn, bull-headed and wrong and they will treat you like the biggest idiots on the face of the earth until the day they find out you’re not that stupid after all. They won’t appreciate what you do for them until life and its hardships knock them around a little. Forgive them that and love them the more for it.

CHILDREN: Forgive your parents and love them anyway. Babies don’t come with instructions and the only real way to handle them is through experience. They know more than you do but they are still only human. Forgive them and never let pass a chance to tell them you love them.

We’re all given only a finite time on this earth and no one knows when God will call them home. I’m lucky in still having both my parents. My wife lost her mother at age 9 and one year ago today my father-in-law passed away. My wife and I both still miss him grievously. I miss his wit, his wisdom and his unique view of the world, God and the Bible. I miss the talks, discussions and even disagreements we had. I wish I’d taken more notes! The one thing neither I nor my wife has is regret. We can both honestly say “I don’t regret not spending more time with him.” With God’s help we will say the same of my parents when they leave.

PARENTS, CHILDREN and FAMILIES: Do not let REGRET be what you feel when your loved ones leave!!! Take the time, MAKE the time to talk NOW! Don’t let stupid shit come between you! Work it out NOW! I do have some regrets about relatives who died. I wish I’d paid them one last visit or talked to them or spent just a few more minutes with them before they died. Those regrets diminish with time but only a little; they never go away. By God’s grace I’ll have a little more time with Mom and Dad. I intend to cherish it. So should you.

-matt