Corlyss knew about time.
When she was a young bride in the Philippines her husband of just a few
months contracted polio and died. She
climbed into the military transport to accompany his body home. Her life was over, time had come to an end, but
an odd thing happened. The sun continued
to rise and the world went on. If she
wasn’t going to die of grief, she decided she wanted to live for something important.
Corlyss knew about time so, as the scripture says, she took the time God had given
her to apply her heart unto wisdom. She
studied, becoming a missionary to China.
After serving her tour she returned home with her adopted Chinese son. She married had a family, and taught school. Corlyss knew about time, so she organized
work crews to go to Sager Brown, covenant groups, taught Disciple I, II, III, and IV, Sunday
school, and tutored children. Corlyss
would have told you she didn’t have a story….that her life was ordinary.
Corlyss knew about time so when I met her even though she
had all the friends she needed she took time to reach out and encircled me. Her wide ranging intellectual interests and
love for bridge brought her a diverse group of friends, and for the last six
years I have gone to her home once a week to learn about things as old as the
Iliad and as new as the latest research on the human brain.
Though she was 83 years old, she never seemed
“old” to me, and So it was quite shocking to learn that on the day following our regular
group meeting that she’d entered the hospital for tests. Two days later, after school, I drove
to Vanderbilt. As I peered around the
corner into her room, she was sitting up wrapped in a purple and white feather
boa. That seemed perfectly normal. She was always ready for a celebration. She motioned me into the room. ”Come in, we are planning a funeral” she announced. “Who
died and when is the funeral, I asked.
Corlyss knew about time. "It’s my funeral, and I have anywhere from two weeks to two months to
plan it." she said matter-of-factly. Then
she waved a yellow legal pad in my direction. “I want you to read this poem at
my funeral and I want you to tell a story.”
There was an authority about her that said, “No point in arguing --- just
say yes.” Within a day she was moved to
hospice and for the next two months I learned about time
My old red 99 Saturn quickly learned the shortest
distance from school to hospice, and took me there three times a week, like
clock work. I don’t have that kind of
time in my schedule, but we aren’t talking about my time here. We are talking about God’s time and somehow
there was always just enough time in the day for a visit. When the call came, two weeks ago that she
was gone, I kept my word and read the poem on the legal pad, as directed. But, I
wanted to learn the story behind the poem.
I called its author, Lynn,
Corlyss’ sister. She had written
the poem after the death of their father.
‘You see, she began I had received
an African Violet as a gift.” Like most of us Lynn felt responsible for keeping
it alive. She carefully removed dead leaves, fed and watered it. Years came
and went.
Still, it refused to respond. Then in the last week of her father's life, a
single paltry purple bloom appeared. Corlyss and Lynn left to take their
father’s body back to their childhood home town to be buried next to, their
mother. They were gone exactly three days.
Upon returning Lynn opened the door to her house bone weary and hung her
coat in the closet. Too tired to change
out of her good clothes she set about making a cup of hot tea.
It wasn’t until she sat down at the table and began dropping
the amber honey into the steaming cup that she looked up and saw the violet miraculously
transformed. There in the window it was covered with a profusion of purple blooms. She picked up a pen and wrote the poem “Truth
Told by a Violet.” I don't imagine she thought that the poem would one day be read at her sisters funeral, but I was what Corlyss wanted. Our pastor, Michael
Williams said, “At 83, Corlyss died too
soon, but had she lived to be 103 I
think I would say even then, that she had died too soon.” Corlyss knew about time….God’s time - Just as
the violet bloomed in God’s time so did Corlyss.
