Memorial Service

Today was the memorial service.
Of my mothers 35 descendants and their spouses, my two brothers, my sister, a sister-in-law, two nephews, and I eulogized her. Below is what I said. Part of it already has appeared on this blog.

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Since October 25 I have been walking around bursting into tears at inconvenient times. And as late as two nights ago I was not going to speak because I thought I would just get up here and start sobbing and then someone would have to carry me off the stage.

But every one of the tears I have shed since October 25, in fact almost every tear I have shed in my whole life is a testimony to my Mother’s love for me.

Before my Mom and Dad adopted me I had been cruelly trained to not cry. My mother discovered this when I crawled over a heater vent and burned myself without yelling or crying out in any way. So she said to my Dad, “We have to teach this baby that it is okay to cry”. So several times a day, until I got the message, they pretended to weep.

So, if I weep today I thank Bunny Karnes. She taught me how.

I was born in February 1969. In August 1969 my biological father murdered my biological mother. And my grandmother mother suddenly found herself overwhelmed by bunch of kids, including me, a baby with all of the needs of a baby.

She was a member of the church pastored by my Dad. He had been by her place a couple of times to check on her, and each time he said to my Mom, "You need to go see that baby", by which he meant me. But each time my Mom, who was a teacher and a mother of three, said, "Billy, I am with kids all day long, I don't need to go see that baby."

But on August 17, my Mom and Dad's wedding anniversary, he went and got me. I was only wearing a dish rag for a diaper. Before he took me into his house he said "Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-shhhhh" and he carried me into the the kitchen where my Mom was doing dishes. I am told that I did not make a noise and that she didn't know we were standing there. When she turned around and saw us standing there I became her son.

And as difficult as it is to believe, the goodness I received from her did not stop there. I wasn’t just taken in and treated like a burden. I was treated like a prince. The dish rag diassapeared and I was dressed in velvet. I was thirsty and she gave me to drink. I was hungry and she fed me. I was naked and she clothed me. When I got older and rebelled her love did not ebb. When I repented she rejoiced. When I suffered – almost always from my own folly - she suffered with me.

She prayed for me always. She taught me to pray by holding me and rocking me when I was an infant. She would pray over and over again “Thank you, Jesus, for letting us adopt Billy Matthew. Thank you, Jesus, for letting us adopt Billy Matthew.” Think about that. She was already a mother. She was not a first time mother with fantasies about how easy it is to raise children. She had two teenagers and a nine year old. Yet, she was thanking God for giving her two more decades of hard work. And the amazing thing is that she counted it joy.

What I am saying is that she was an Icon of Jesus to me. She had so completely put on Christ that her way of life evangelized me and drew me to Him who loves me even more than she loves me. She put my feet on the Rock. And so now, when St. John says God’s love is perfected in us (1 John 4:12), and St. Peter says we are participants in the Divine nature (2 Peter 1:4) I know exactly what they are talking about.

The Apostles are talking about growing in Jesus to a point where bearing the burdens of others is not just second nature, but first nature. They are talking about living Christ to such an extent that suffering with the suffering isn’t one option among many, but is the only way of life.

The Apostles are talking about being like Jesus, so that even though you are tired from already having three children of your own and dealing with a classroom full of other peoples’ kids every day, your heart breaks, like Jesus’ heart broke on the Cross, and the only thing you can do, because it’s the only thing Christ living in you would do, is turn an orphan into a son.

A few days after my Dad gave me to her, my mom wrote these words:

"What do I need with you, little boy
Looking so solemn with big blue eyes
There with Daddy holding you close
Smiling because of his big surprise?"

"What do you need with me, dear little one
Old enough to be your granny-
Why to love each other, what else? My son.
So God gave you to our family."


Thank you, Jesus, for letting her adopt Billy Matthew.