She is almost 96, wheel chair bound, grossly overweight, skin shriveling and often just stares out a window or across the room. This snow white haired lady is my mother.
    She was not always this way. Once spunky, filled with a work ethic that would shame the most industrious, meticulous in her accounting of her meager finances has now at best only a fleeing memory. Visits with her are relegated to the same topics and her memory is a thing of the past. She knows me and best of all I know her.
    Having me at an older age than many of her peers she still played catch with me, drove me to ball games and was my chauffeur when I first started dating. She lay awake each night when I was out dating or with friends until I arrived home safely.
    She “drug” me to church where I met the pastor and my first church family but more importantly, I met God and Jesus and learned of the Holy Spirit’s prompting as I tested life in my teen years. It was tears in her eyes, tears of joy, when I made a public decision to follow the call to the ministry. It was the couple extra dollars she sent me to do wash and have a buck in my pocket while in college preparing for the ministry. I knew the few dollars came from the paltry earnings she made cleaning houses 6-7 hrs a day, 4 and 5 days a week.
    On this Mothers Day 2008, I honor my Mother, Almeda Leona Lane Campbell.
She was faithful in the pew and faithful in the planting of good things in my life.