Our mother was a gem. Like all gemstones, if you look at her from just one side, one facet, you miss the dazzling brilliance, the reflection of light. To see her from one or even two dimensions is to miss her depth.

Some of you know the farm girl, in the middle of nine children. The family’s small wood-frame house just across the Chatham County line had no heat, for years no electricity, and it never had a bathroom.

When Mom was 13 her father died from a cerebral aneurysm. He was on a bus bound for Virginia where he had steady income as a machinist for the Navy, in addition to running the tobacco farm back home. The bus driver mistook his odd behavior from a bleeding brain for drunken folly and put him out to die alongside a rural Virginia roadway. He was found by passers-by and taken to a hospital in Norfolk but didn’t live long – a couple days at best.

This event was the most defining and deeply painful experience of our mother’s life, a wound she carried for 68 years.

Some of you know the teenager determined to become a nurse so she could help other daughters’ gentle, kind fathers.

Mom attended LPN school where she shared a room in town with a friend. They had a stipend that covered two meals a day, and they walked to a nearby drug store in the evening for a pack of crackers to hold them over until their next solid meal. Until the week she died, Mom always kept a pack of crackers in her car and in her purse – because you never know when you might be hungry.

Some of you knew the young nurse who later returned home to the farmhouse with no heat, no insulation, and an outhouse because she was more help to her mother and the younger children without the expense of an in-town apartment.

Some knew the beaming young bride-to-be who worked extra to buy a second-hand wedding dress on consignment. “Nearly new,” it was a debutante’s gown, listed in the paper as “a formal gown of silk organza and Chantilly lace fashioned with a lace bodice, scooped neckline, and short sleeves.”  A classic. I’ve always felt somewhat sorry for the debutante who likely saw her dress and its description in the bridal section of the paper just weeks after her own debut. I felt for her because that dress was made for our beautiful mother.

This same young woman taught herself to sew in order to make new clothes for her mother, our grandmother.  She who once wore feed-sack dresses made beautiful dresses for Sheila and me from the scraps of the dresses she made for our grandmother. Though we lacked finery, in school and in church, Sheila and I had the finest dresses of all the little girls at St. Stephen’s, hands down. Handmade with love.

Her operating-room friends, seated up front because they are family, know the mother of three who went back to school to become an RN – to improve herself, who believed anything was possible with hard work. She locked herself in her small bathroom at night so she could study in peace, often crying in that bathroom from exhaustion. These friends knew the exasperated mother of teenage girls who regularly received calls at work from her daughters – in the operating room at 681-5155 – asking permission to go to the mall or to Cheri’s house or Julie’s house – or, my favorite, “Can we have pizza for dinner?”

Everyone at Duke knew the kind nurse who cared for patients with compassion. I heard compassion defined last week as “a courageous, selfless act.” Mom knew so deeply the pain caused by loss that she fought to protect her patients and their families from the same, each surgical “case” a chance to soothe her own childhood wound with the salve of compassion and focused skill.

Some at Duke knew another side, another facet of our mother. The OR is high-stress and not always kind. Once in surgery, a doctor asked for a particular instrument. She thought it was strange, but she did as asked. His response was sharp. With a raised voice he said, “Miss Blalock, Don’t give me what I ask for, give me what I need.”

In moments like this, she drew a line. It generally went something like this: “Don’t you EVER talk to me like that again. I am a person.”  Or “I’m a good person. You will NEVER do that to me again.” She rarely shared the details with us. It was over, and she had handled it. But sometimes months, even years down the road, in reflecting on these incidents, her simple five-word summary was always the same. “I chewed his ass out.”

That is another facet of our mother.

Through the years dozens of friends and family knew the angel of mercy who ministered to the bodies and spirits of people she knew who were sick or dying. We simply can’t count the number of people she loyally served through serious illness, seeing them through to one outcome or another. It was her gift, and when she offered it, it was because she truly loved. When she appeared in your hospital room or that of your loved one, it was because you were chosen. There was and is no one more loyal, more dedicated.

Others knew the woman who longed to walk on the beach, “to think my own thoughts,” she would say. Some the avid neighborhood and mall walker who put in at least three and sometimes six miles a day after long days at work. “I have to do it for my heart,” she said.

Neighbors knew the private, quiet woman who transplanted trees, shrubs and bulbs from her parents’ land to her yard to keep our roots firmly planted in our honest, proud past – our legacy of decency, of seeing everyone as equally human, equally important, of hard work and never, ever quitting.

An important facet of our mother is what she didn’t say what she did not share. You see, gems are formed under pressure and refined later through sharp stabbing pain. She held the difficult parts of life quite private.

While she wouldn’t want this discussed so openly, her secret is now out. Mom was born with structural heart issues that influenced her entire life – a malformation of her chest wall that crowded her heart as her growth plates changed over time. This in combination with small holes in her heart, one of which could not be fixed, caused arrhythmias later in life that were hard to control and led to problems with her valves that made her heart weak and inefficient. Knowing exactly the risks this combination of structural problems brought, she took extraordinary care of herself, a cardiologist’s model patient.

She shared just weeks ago for the first time that she was warned as a young woman not to have children, that the strain would be too much for her heart. Our mother chose defiantly, intentionally to bring life into the world three times anyway. That is our mother – sacrificial love once again. It wasn’t until this year that we fully understood how serious her health challenges had become and how lucky – how blessed – she was to make it to 81, always, I might add, looking so darn beautiful. (She would also want us to say ‘young-looking’ and ‘with naturally dark hair.’)

There was more she didn’t say. Like all people she was wronged and hurt at times, sometimes betrayed by those closest to her. It’s safe to say she had more than her fair share of undeserved pain. She silently carried her burdens, rarely confiding in anyone. She was slow to process emotions but always forgave. She modeled this for us through her words and actions, saying things like, “Don’t dwell on it.” “You have to let it go.” “Don’t let it bring you down.” “Hold your head high. Let them talk about you – let them say what they want – in the end we’re all seen for who we are.” Even when it would have been fair, she never retaliated, taking the high road and following her father’s admonition to always do what’s right – the greatest thing in life. Simple wisdom – but not a simple person.

Our mother was a spiritual giant. Her reading list ranged from the writings of Luther and Augustine to Sue Monk Kidd and Corrie Ten Boom, various contemporary Christian authors – and the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhact Hanh whose book Fear lay on the table by her chair, its pages thin from wear. She hand copied passages of scripture like a modern-day scribe, carefully repeating the passages she most needed for her own reassurance, writing in the margins notes such as “when you’re wronged, when you feel alone, when you’re scared.” She prayed constantly, unceasingly – for my health, the job market in Wilmington, for another exasperated mother of three, working and going back to school in medicine. She was more than loving, more than loyal, more than faithful – to her girls and to so many others.

Throughout her life she spoke of awareness of angels. She also had premonitions before bad things happened, including her own father’s death. It wasn’t uncommon in our childhood for her to have “that feeling” and not allow us to go out with friends on the weekends, only to learn the following Monday about a friend or schoolmate’s car accident. She was deeply in tune with what’s invisible yet always around us – highly intuitive, highly knowing. She lived the space between the already and the not yet, the paschal mystery. It might be easy to judge her spiritual experience as simple or superficial. Some did, and they were also wrong. She was always right, always connected. Our mother was unburdened by the trappings of consumption and popularity, giving her closer contact with what matters.

And speaking of angels, by far the most joyful facet of our mother’s life was her role as grandmother. While nursing was her calling, becoming Gigi was her purpose. To know her was to know her love for her grandsons – August, Emerson and Milo.

Boys, Gigi lived 81 years. That is such a gift – we’re so lucky.

Everyone knows the years she spent as your grandmother – those were the happiest years of her life. No one made her happier than you three beautiful boys. August and Emerson, I want you to do something if you will. During the service today and in the reception later, I want you to look around at all the people who are here. They all hold pieces of Gigi inside them. They know stories from across her life – some when she was your age. They’ve heard her talk about her love for you. In these friends and in the stories they have to share, she is always here.

We’ve lost so much, but I want you to know our family didn’t get smaller when we lost Gigi; it actually became much bigger. Just look at the people who are here today because they love her, because they love you. They’re here today and in the future for you.

These boys lost their Nana, their father’s mother, this year, too. They are the children of the youngest on both sides and didn’t have the blessing of many years as some grandchildren do. As a gift to them, we invite all of you to share with us your stories and remembrances of Mom. There’s a table in the parish hall where you can write a remembrance, or tell a serious or not-so-serious story – or you can email us if you like, if that’s easier, if you need time to think or if typing is easier – there’s an email address in the parish hall you can take with you.

There are so many facets of our beautiful, fierce, strong, sometimes underestimated, thoughtful, deep, intuitive, surprisingly funny, sharply determined, somewhat defiant, dear, sensitive, always loving mother.

Mom, Gigi, Aunt Hazel, sister, nurse, church usher and greeter here at St. Stephens, friend, benefactor of undeserved, sacrificial love to so many – she was and is a gem, a rare multifaceted gemstone. She had and has unusual dazzling brilliance.  Stunning brilliance. She was and is a reflection of light.