Our lives are shaped by those who love us.

JOHN POWELL

In seventeen years of writing I have not received anything like the avalanche of mail that descended after I wrote short versions of the previous two chapters for my “Laughing Matters” column. Letters showed up from around the world. Several were from self-described agnostics and atheists—one a childhood friend of mine. Amid generous expletives, he expressed how much he loved being in our home when he was a boy. “Your parents [bad word] loved me when no one else [even badder word] did,” the edited version would read.

At least a dozen came from those who had a product guaranteed to fix my Mom. I shall paraphrase what those letters looked like:

Dear Phil,

If you will sign up under me, I believe [enter amazing product here] is the answer to your mother’s problems. Since we accepted [enter astoundingly affordable product again] into our lives, we are different people. We have no friends now, but lots of money.

Sincerely,

[enter name here]

One suggested a fascinating therapy. “I manufacture quilts with Bible verses embroidered on them. When spread across their laps, these quilts bring Alzheimer’s patients back to us. They are only two hundred dollars each.”

Several informed me that it was my fault: “If you just had more faith, she would be healed.”

One recommended, “If you can just get her to drink more water every day, she’ll be fine.”

But mostly, as I pored over these letters, I was struck by peoples kindness and compassion. Jeanette Windle, a best-selling novelist, wrote: “Your mother had such an influence on my own life as a writer. I remember vividly being an eighteen-year-old missionary kid lost in the strange, cold country of Canada and reading Bernice Callaway’s literature. It gave me hope that one day I would write books too. The rest, of course, is history.”

Another author, Maxine Hancock, wrote, “Having just come through the stage you are now in, I know how hard it is: My father lost his mobility, my mother lost her mind, and we came pretty close to losing our sense of humor over the past six years. But both parents have now made it to the Crossing Over point. The losses of old age may be even harder when the contrast between what is and what was is so sharp.”

A ninety-one-year-old saint by the name of Delma Jackson told how God had used the story. “I read it many times and it began to dawn on me that while I have eagerly looked forward to going to heaven knowing I am a child of God, I have been in complete denial about this possibility of a slow good-bye.’ Gradually I began to embrace the fact that if it should come, God would be big enough for even this. The result? A wonderful work of revival is going on in my life. I have been reading His Word and praying that He would help me shine my light in the years I have left.”

Vera Tyler of London wrote, “My husband, Bill, died in December after ten years of suffering the increasing confusion and loneliness of Alzheimer’s. We watched him lose all memory of the years we spent serving with China Inland Mission, even though he could still speak Chinese. Much of life was forgotten, but he was still praising God and singing the old much-loved hymns. He remained a blessing by being his gracious, grateful self.”

Bertha Parker Thompson told me that her mother was the one who knelt with her when she was seven and helped guide her into the family of God. “She also read Winnie-the-Pooh. At eighty-six, she has no short-term memory and no logic. She lives on Pop-Tarts and milk, even though she’s a diabetic. But she still can sing all the hymns with all the verses. And she can still recite almost all of ‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’! Still, we are truly blessed that of all the mothers we could have had, God loaned us to her.”

And Sharon McLver-DeBruyn, one of the gals who now refers to my mother as Mom, wrote, “I remember the time I asked my own sweet little mother what she thought about a problem and she replied, ‘I don’t know. You decide. You are the mother.’ It was such a privilege to be my mother’s mother as she faded away into that land where she will never grow old. Thank you for this lovely, sensitive reminder that family is so important and God’s grace is immeasurable.”

The novelist Margaret Lee Runbeck said, “A man leaves all kinds of footprints when he walks through life. Some you can see, like his children and his house. Others are invisible, like the prints he leaves across other people’s lives: the help he gives them and what he has said—his jokes, gossip that has hurt others, encouragement. A man doesn’t think about it, but everywhere he passes, he leaves some kind of mark.”

I once heard someone ask Mom which of her books she was most proud of. I leaned closer at the question, because she had written half a dozen, and I couldn’t wait to hear the answer.

“I have five books I’m still working on, and I’m most proud of them,” she grinned.

“Oh? And what are the titles?”

“Dave, Dan, Tim, Ruth, and little Philip,” she replied. “I hope I’m writing my best material into their lives.”

Though I have been privileged to share platforms with some of the greatest orators on Earth, it was my father’s words lived out before me that shaped my life far more than any preacher. Though my bookshelves are filled with several thousand volumes of the finest books on faith, it is the life of my mother, a simple farm girl from Ontario, Canada, that has shown me what it means to walk with Christ, how to lean on Him for strength, how to share His joy with others, all the way Home. I thank God for two very human parents who wrote their stories across my life, who taught me early what really mattered. May God give us all strength and wisdom to walk in their steps.