In Loving Memory of...
Elizabeth Fay Ashley
October 22, 1940 - July 21, 2007

It is the way of the world that the inhabitants of the world weep
when the King’s daughter departs from them.
There is a wise man who said; “Why are you crying?
Is she not the King’s daughter?

Is it not right that she should dwell among you any longer.
She should dwell in her Father’s palace.”

Come and see, if all the righteous knew this,
they would be glad when the day comes for them to depart from this world.
For is it not a high honor that the glory of God comes for them
to escort them into the King’s palace,
and that the King will rejoice with them every day?
For the Creator finds joy with the souls of the righteous…

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MY DEAR MOTHER…

If I could have gave you diamonds
for each tear you cried for me,
If I could have gave you sapphires
for each truth you’d helped me see,
If I could have gave you rubies
for the heartaches that you’d known,
If I could have gave you pearls
for the wisdom that you had shown,
Then you would have had a treasure up to the skies;
That almost would have matched
the sparkle that was in
Your kind and loving eyes…

But I had no pearls or diamonds,
As I am sure you were well aware.
So I gave you gifts more precious;
My devotion, love and tender care.

I miss you Momma, always will.

On My Own

When my mother died, I grieved for the woman who had become my best friend. In the process I discovered myself…

I am 50, but it wasn’t until my mother died this July that I finally felt like a real adult. She watched my hair turning gray, my arthritis set in, and my three babies become adults with minds of their own. Yet to Elizabeth Fay Benson, no matter my age, I was always her baby girl.

At times now, without her, I feel like one. I am old enough to be a grandma myself, but this slap of loss leaves me heaving, at odd moments, with kindergarten sobs. No one loves a daughter like her mother ~ even at times when it doesn’t feel like love, when that love confuses, annoys, suffocates. She was a mirror and an anchor. She was the person I counted on to push my hair out of my eyes, to buffer me from bullies, to lead the way.

After more than half a century together, separating is staggering. Today I grieve for a woman who not only grilled my cheese sandwiches until the day she ‘went home’, but also grew into my closest confidant, staunchest advocate and adversary, and the most loyal girlfriend I will ever have.

My mother preserved my whole history as if it were a precious quilt, patching together stages with pictures and notes, keeping the sprawling bolt of fabric intact. And when that primal and seemingly ancient connection was cut, it was like being yanked from the womb again – only it was way tougher than the first time. She had grown on me and in me, and the distinction of selves became blurred. We shared a heart.

But…

It wasn’t always this pretty. I spent much of my adolescence wishing my formidable mother belonged to somebody else. Of Irish and American Indian Ancestors, she wasn’t a classic, cuddly mom. We didn’t bake cakes together; in fact her daughters learned our way around a kitchen at an early age. To support us she had always been a hard worker, which meant many hours away from her growing children. The older learned to care for the younger, and we all learned to take care of ourselves, as our petite little mother help build the cars America drives.

She was obsessed with order, running our household with military precision. Meals were served to the masses with precision (no snacks in between, lights out at 9:00p.m.. Rather than coo if I took a tumble, she would huff and say, “Stop crying. It could be worse.” This strong survivor of the poverty of the Tennessee hills did not tolerate whining. Yet, she was the one I fled to for solace when a bad dream shook me awake.

I was jealous of my childhood buddies who had frivolous moms without tragic histories. Those moms bought them Teen magazine. They were “whatever” moms. I remember going over to a friends’ houses after school and rejoicing in being able to devour Twinkies without having them be snatched away with the sharp reminder: “You’ll ruin your appetite for dinner.” Friends’ mothers smiled a lot; my mom cried a lot. She used to lie in the “good” living room, her eyes closed, clutching a tattered black-and-white picture whose images remain a mystery today.

Decades later, I appreciate my mother for the reasons I used to loathe her. I detested that she was regimented and uncompromising. Yet her unfailing predictability and boundaries put stability at my core. She didn’t teach me how to cook or how to be girly. But this mother of mine, who wasn’t big on coddling, passed on the most valuable gift of all; resilience. Because of who she was, I feel as if I can handle anything. Despite unspeakable horrors, my mother always persevered.

She had survived spinal menengitis as a young woman, buried husbands, her parents and a cherished wayward son. The last year of her life I came back home to live with Momma, she needed me now. Someone had to lift her from the abyss of mourning; by reminding her that she had more children still living who needed her, and that she herself was still very much alive.

She would hug me and tell me how she would never have made it thru the wall of grief without me. We laughed and cried together; like the best of friends. She had always been there for me, and I was determined to be here for her. I took her shopping at Bealls, and to lunch after church. I kissed her forehead and tucked her in at night; never failing to tell her I loved her and just how much she meant to me. It is the most valued year of my life, and the last of hers.

Even from the grave she is propping me up, and pushing me forward. When the tears come, as they do each time I realize she is no longer in the other room or just a speed-dial away. I can almost feel her shake me and say; , “Stop crying. It could be worse.”

Her parting example of courage is indelible. I watched as she clutched at her final days with fierce tenacity, finally succumbing, and took her final trip ‘Home’. The doctors thought she would awaken, and I was looking forward to many more years, never did it occur to me that she was actually leaving me.

My irrepressible mother would race back to Earth and kill me if I crumbled when she died, immobilized because I lost my Mommy, at the age of 50. Watching her push through the pain was the most powerful lesson a parent can give a child ~ that life is harsh, but you must not be destroyed by external circumstances. “If spinal menegitis didn’t get me, nothing will,” she used to say. I miss her voice and her scent, even her barbs. I miss being somebody’s child.

Yet she reminds me constantly that she is not really gone. I find 'pennies-from-heaven' everywhere I go...A stranger walks by wearing Ciara, my mother’s fragrance, and a whiff of her perfume shoots a lifetime of maternal images through me. My mom is not just ashes in a decorative urn; she is racing towards me at the airport, having just gotten off a flight from Tampa to stay with her daughter near Ann Arbor. She stands on her toes to grab my neck in a hug, engulfing me in her Ciara cloud, and I wince at a fantasy touch that feels real. While dismantling her home, I shoved one of her bottles of Ciara in my purse, and it has become my fragrance, infusing me with her, helping to fill the giant canyon she left in my heart.

Friends speak of knowing their deceased moms have returned when mystical signals suddenly appear. One woman is convinced her mom is now the fat, beautiful cardinal that flutters, nonstop, around her bird feeder. Another daughter sees her mother’s face in rainbows. My continuing connection with Elizabeth id not as other-worldly. All I have to do is open my mouth and shoo my kids away from the cookie jar because “It will ruin your dinner,” and there she is.

In her final year I probed and listened hard, desperate to hear any leftover stories and the last of her advice. And she prodded me into areas of my past she had dared not excavate before. We cried a lot and said, “I love you” a lot. My only brother (left) once said he did not answer her calls on occasion because he “was tired of hearing her whine”…today I would trade life itself to hear her say a word. She listened to five of us whine for years, she deserved to have an ear for her tears anytime ~ she earned it, and deserved it. When death started whispering her name, I knew I had to dig in, love wholly, forgive, and hold nothing back.

What I learned during those final months was that resolving your relationship with your mother while she’s alive makes for a more centered, settled self when she goes. With clarity and closure, the jolting passage from girl to woman born at my mother’s death was more emancipating than debilitating. Only when my mother moved on was I able to take the best of her, leave the worst behind, and become the unstoppable blend of the two of us.

Surging with the spirit of Elizabeth Fay, I am surprisingly giddy with a sense of adventure and invincibility that is rising like a phoenix from the ashes of grief. I am relieved that she is no longer suffering, I am released to become an unbridled woman who doesn’t have to please anyone anymore. For as long as I can remember, I would hesitate before making major decisions, gauging my moves on: “Would Mom approve?” Mom is somewhere else know, the better place I want to go to, she is the power that fuels me, but no longer my judge, I am free.

I can wear hippie skirts and unkempt hair and not be greeted with a dramatic eye roll.

I can learn to mother myself, and it’s about time.

I can be absolutely fearless, since one of my biggest fears has already occurred – I lost my mother, and I will be okay.

Each afternoon, I talk to her photograph, a shot of her after one of our outings, wearing a new shirt and her welcoming smile. The picture is next to a cinnamon candle, both placed on a silk scarf she adored. By the pungent flicker of the flame, I am awash in certainty that we are one. I wailed when my mom was dying and wondered: “Who will I be when my Mother is gone?” Standing on the other side, I am happy to discover who that person is: I am my Mother’s daughter, an adult woman who will persevere. I could live another 40 years, and she prepared me well to make this voyage without her, however lonely it may get.

It’s been almost a month, and it is the first morning of August, and outside our kitchen window the pink of dawn glistens on the Florida horizon. I look at my hands, callused and large veined, rough from water and soap and children and time. They are my mother’s hands. I want her here, right now, and I am starting to sniffle when her little dog, Precious, my sister, licks me on the foot letting me know she is still here and still needs me. I bend to pick her up, pull her to my neck in a hug, and I am grateful I had a mother for so long and that there’s plenty of sweet life ahead. Thank you Momma and goodbye...for now.

BENSON, Elizabeth "Beth" Fay, 66, of Zephyrhills, went home to be with the Lord Saturday, July 21, 2007, in Charlotte, N.C. She was born October 22, 1940, in Finley, Tenn., to W.M. Hollis Ashley and Lena Mae Medlin. She spent most of her adult years in Lansing, Mich., working for General Motors, to later retire in Harrison, Mich. She came to Zephyrhills, Fla., in 2000. She is survived by her sisters, Clara Mae Burns and Linda Sue Wells; her daughters, Cheryl Ann Linindoll-Roberts, Dianna Lynn Jenks and Melanie Lee Beeson; her son, Michael Wayne Beeson; and her grandchildren, Sarah, Nicholas, Angela, Christopher, Miranda, Tasha, Cassandra, Brittany, Marcus and Briana; as well as numerous loved ones and dear friends. She was preceded in death by her parents; her son, Charles Dan Hall; and spouses, Donald T. Maisonville and Milton "Ben" Benson. We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18. Visitation will begin at 11 a.m. Friday, July 27, 2007, with services following at 1 p.m., at New Beginnings Baptist Church, 5038 Mission Square Lane, off State Road 54 West in Zephyrhills. Pastor Steve York will officiate. A celebration of her life will take place following the services at Sundance Community Club House, State Road 54 East, Zephyrhills.

My heartfelt thanks to all that supported me
At the time of my mother's departing...
She has only gone to a better place..
Remember To Live Well, Laugh Often and Love Much...
Time Waits For No One
And, please, hug your Momma every chance you get,
cause we never know when IS the last chance...I would give anything to hug my little Momma again.

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Her Memorial Page @ FindAGrave.com
Her Baby Boy; Charlie's Memorial Page
Cheryl's Personal Pages
Her MEDLIN Family Roots
Her ASHLEY Family Roots

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~Made with Love~

 

Created Especially For Mother
By Her Daughter
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