An Amazingly Beautiful Legacy OR “We’re Making A Break For It!”

My mother, Dorothy Byrd, has joined the ancestors. There’s a lot I could say here about her. Things like how she inspired dozens, if not hundreds, of young women to rise above their surroundings during more than 60 years as a Girl Scout leader… or things like how she taught adults how to read in night school… or how she was a tireless worker and advocate for her church, Mount Moriah Baptist in Spartanburg. But I won’t start there. I’ll start by picking up from my last blog entry and moving forward from there.

In 2019, even as memory faded, she remained a strong advocate for elementary education. Photo by Gerald Jackson.

The muddy waters of memory continued to get more occluded as the summer wore on. She fought against the darkening of the light with the same dogged determination that she has shown throughout all of her life. There was something else I started to notice at the same time. I had enrolled her in what I euphemistically called “The Center,” an adult daycare facility. She said she liked it, but it took longer and longer to get her ready to go in the mornings. Then, one day in July, while I was attempting to get her dressed, she passed out. I called EMS and they took her to the hospital. At first they diagnosed her with an urinary tract infection, but followed that diagnosis with one of Afib… a condition where the heart beats out of sync and can cause blood clots leading to stroke. She spent 3 days in the emergency room, being treated for this because there were, because of COVID, no beds available. She had one day in a regular room before being released.

Coming home from this, she spent time with physical therapists and occupational therapists that became more and more necessary because she was lacking the energy to even stand up while getting dressed… let alone go somewhere.

She went back to the hospital in September, shortly after her 89th birthday. She was in the hospital for four days then, and then she was off for three weeks of rehab at what has to be at that time the worst facility for rehab in Mecklenburg County, Autumn Care of Cornelius. Despite the obvious professionalism of many on staff, there was one person in particular that I documented in a letter to the facility to be, in an understatement, horrible.

Both she and I were happy for her to leave there and return home… so much so that the picture above hints at, but doesn’t cover, her elation… and why this blog entry has two titles. She was home for a week before her condition worsened, she left home for the last time in an ambulance and spent two weeks in the ICU before being called home.

I’ve purposefully left out a lot. I started this blog entry on November 5th, one day after her passing. When it was started, my efforts were full of pain, but on Mother’s Day morning as I’m finishing it, what I’m feeling is a sense of gratitude. Thank God for her life and the indeed amazing legacy she left behind. Thank God for the lives she touched. And thank you Heavenly Father for blessing me with the fruits of her life well lived.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mama. Your son’s doing great… and in the words of “Conan the Barbarian’s” storyteller, “but THAT… is another story…”