Gee, it’s Going to be a Beautiful Day

Gee, it’s Going to be a Beautiful Day

Sunsettree

It was June, 1983. My two sisters, father and I sat in a North Carolina hospital room. My mother lay in the bed, dying. She had always been a strong woman, but the last three weeks had left her an empty shell of her previous self. Semi-conscious. Her lips, dry and cracked. Her voice a few moans. Her eyes, a fog of lifelessness.

That night I decided upon the inevitable. It was time to let her go. I went to the chapel, and I gave God permission to take her. I returned to my room contented. I knew, by the next morning, it would be over. I slept a contented sleep.
Instead I awoke to a rustling in the bed. She was still hanging on.

Why had God ignored me? I had given him my permission to take my mother. Then she rolled her head over toward the window. The newly risen sun was bursting through the window. She opened her eyes. Eyes no longer lifeless, but rather sparkling from the sunlight. And she spoke her first coherent words in a week.

“Gee, it’s going to be a beautiful day.”
We rushed to her side.
“Momma, do you know me, it’s Jerry.”
“Of course I know you, you’re my son.”
We spent a joyous day. Several relatives came down.

We laughed. We joked. We lived. I didn’t want the day to end. But it did.

The next morning, just before sunrise, we awoke to the stirring of angel’s wings. The morning before, my mother had awakened before the risen sun. Today, she awoke before the risen Son.
It took me a couple of weeks to recognize the miraculous gift God had presented me. If he had taken my mother the previous night, my memories today would be of her lying in her death bed, lips cracked, eyes lifeless. Instead, my final memories of her are… a beautiful day.
While I’m at home I sleep facing a window that faces the morning sky. The view I awake to is that shown at the top of the article. When I am at our condo in Myrtle Beach, or on a cruise, I try to watch the sunrise. And the first words that I speak are Gee, it’s going to be a beautiful day. Then I go out and make it one.

My prayer is that
www.bringinghopeandhappiness.com
will make each and every day beautiful for you.

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About Jerry Haynes

OK, where do I start. I was born…., no that line has already been taken.Call me…, oops so has that one. Well, I won’t attempt to spout musical prose, and just be myself. I grew up in the small cotton mill town of Fries, VA. My parents were hardworking members of the middle class. They never earned more than a little over minimum wage, but I can never remember lacking for anything. After graduating from Fries High School in 1969, I started to VA Tech. After two years of partying (1st), going to movies (2nd), and studying, well, much further down the list, VA Tech decided I need a two year break to get my priorities straight. With a number 8 in the draft lottery, I knew that even if the Hokies didn’t want me, Uncle Sam did. I joined the US Navy. I got my priorities straight. I’m proud to be a Viet Nam veteran, but feel guilty I never got deployed. I graduated from Tech in 1977 with a BS in Civil Engineering. For the next 35 years I would work in both the private and public sectors. My first job took me to Tazewell County, Virginia where I soon joined the Jaycees. This ignited my passion for individual development. This passion still burns today.

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