Why is it that I miss her so much? All the selfish reasons.
I will never laugh so hard in an antique store again (as that day that I fell down a flight of stairs holding a stack of antique dishes, making it all the way to the bottom, with clatter and flair, but still holding every dish and not breaking a single one!). Pat Deasy could laugh at me, with me, beside me, over me and while pulling me up!…And make me laugh just as hard!).
I will never get to wander through fields of giant sunflowers with anyone who loves plants as much as Pat.
I will never get to explore historic sites all over middle Tennessee with my friend, and exclaim over the English antiques and the bullet holes from Civil war skirmishes and the manicured gardens surrounding the mansions. There will never be another Biltmore trip like the one we did together, where, just as we began eating our supper by a hearth in the fanciest McDonald’s I’d ever visited, a soft snow started to fall over Asheville, making the view, by the time we arrived at the mansion, one of the prettiest snow views I’ll ever see in this lifetime. I’ll never get to play cards in the lobby of the hotel with my friend again.
I’ll never get to watch her jump up and down with excitement, while playing Pictionary with the elders and preachers again.
It’s all the selfish reasons.
Who else has a friend who hears you mention that you’d like to have a log cabin in your back yard and, next thing you know, she’s found the cabin for you? She and her good husband take you to see it, an old un-chinked structure…and they encourage you to go ahead and buy it? So you do. And, when the cabin-raising day comes, they skin the chicken for the grilling in your back yard, without even being asked? Who has those friends? 
Who has a friend who will come over and spend hours and hours decorating for your daughter’s wedding…bringing everything you could ever think of using, climbing ladders and hanging lights in tenuous old ceiling fixtures? And then, who has a friend who works just as hard picking up pieces with you, when your life falls apart, as she did when you thought you had it all together? There are really just not too many sisters like that anymore! But she was!
Who has a friend who travels to Clarksville, Tennessee on Christmas week for your son’s wedding? I had that friend.
Who has a friend who will drop everything almost any Thursday night you call up—even last minute__ and say “Can y’all go with us to Marvins for fish?” I had that friend. I’m not sure I can go back to Marvin’s anymore. Her anticipated sweet potatoes couldn’t taste as sweet and good anymore. She’d go all day on Thursday without eating, just so we could sit there and talk and eat, and eat and talk, on Thursday night. She’d bring me the Early America Life Magazines that she’d already looked through (I have a stack now waiting for me and they make me cry), and we would talk…about the decor in the magazines, about Dorcas class and that sweet first great grandchild and she’d want an update on each one of our kids, too.
Who has a friend who, upon finding out that your daughter likes those antique and pricey blue-green pyrex dishes, just makes a mental note and pulls one out of her own collection at home and brings it to church for that daughter’s birthday? 
Who has a friend who can take you to meet her country music agent and can reminisce about playing the Grand Ole Opry and recording with Floyd Cramer as if these were just routine events in her everyday world? Who?
There they are again. All the wonderful things I will miss so much!
I will miss those times she shared the Tennessee house with us. So beautiful and serene. I will miss seeing that cemetery where she sang as a five-year-old while swinging in that tree swing and where her body will now rest. I will miss visiting the South Tunnel church.
I will miss tromping through sunflower fields with her and running to Ardmore to see what our “antique lady” had found on her trip up north. I will miss looking for antique linens and tiny baby items for Katey and scouring for seventies mushroom decor in moss green and gold and brown for Drew.
I’ll miss her love for all the pretty flowers, but especially her roses in May that really almost covered the front of her house. I’ll mss the Mother’s Day mornings when she would bring Glenn a red rose for his lapel to wear in honor of his mother.
I’ll miss her love for the tiny creatures God made. While I was fuming at the squirrels in the attic, she was making friends with them outside her kitchen window. I will miss walking her backyard path; surely the most beautiful backyard path in the city of Huntsville. Oh, the hours and hours of work she put in, with joy, there! I will miss her conversations about traveling with Bo, the cat.
It’s just about the selfish and temporary loss…the missing…for me.
I’ll miss the things she taught me about cooking and hospitality. Whenever we would find something in a restaurant that we loved, she’d keep looking until she found the recipe. I’ll miss that orange pretzel salad that we first had in that great luncheon place, but then, thanks to her, we learned to make it. I had that salad last Christmas and my Mattianne has even become an expert at that delectable treat!
I’ll never eat at anyone’s table that’s quite so beautiful and elegantly served as Pat’s was! I’d give almost anything to have one more conversation—a final one that I didn’t get the chance to have—at that table. Just once more… having her standing there, passing mashed potatoes and roast and beautiful rolls from that giant side buffet.
I’ll miss the amazing flair she had for vintage and Victorian clothing. She could pull off, with perfection, what nobody else could. I loved her beaded clutch bags and puffy poplin blouses and the antique laces and lace-up ankle boots with tiny heels. She could sew beautiful things and she could “re-do” anything to make it modest or make it fit. Once when I was having a bit of trouble understanding a pattern for a navy vintage sailor suit I was making for Ezra, I brought it so I could show her my conundrum on Sunday morning. I had been stumped for days. She took it home and by Sunday night she’d figure out what I was doing wrong. She was the best at all things feminine and all homemaking skills.
I’ll miss her love for preachers and the way she cared for their needs. I’ll miss her telling me about all the ones that stayed in their house when she was just a little girl.
But the biggest “miss” for me will be our conversations about the Lord and the Word. I was in the Collierville, Tennessee church building that day I first met Pat in early 2003. She and Mike and another elder and his wife showed up anonymously and, by surprise, to visit the church where Glenn was preaching at the time. I approached these two elders’ wives in the lobby. Not knowing who they were, I thought I could start a conversation and maybe lead them to the Lord. I invited them to stay for the fellowship meal. I inquired about whether they were local. Pat answered “No, we live in Huntsville, Alabama.”
“Well,” I said “You should really stay and eat with us. Where did your husbands go?”
“Our husbands are back in your husband’s office talking with him.”
At that moment, I started figuring out just why they had shown up for services. I thought, “Well, do I need to pack my bags for a move to Huntsville?” At that moment, also, a very long and dear friendship began to take root in my heart. We could have deep and thoughtful conversations about the Lord and, mostly, we could start those talks about passages without ever opening our Bibles. This kind of friendship is so precious and rare. She’d say “Why do you think Jesus said this?” or “What was happening in the disciples’ minds when they saw this?” or “Why did the Lord say ‘don’t touch me’ and then he let Thomas touch him?” We could talk for a long time about the Word, and then we’d usually go ahead and open it and figure out some nuance or the difference in some passage between my KJV and her NASB.
Today, a very trusted group of praying women removed Pat’s phone number from a very intimate little group of women who have prayed Cindy Colley through the darkest days of her life. She always let me know she was praying every single day for our family. I wrote about these women in the brand new Digging Deep study “The God of More.” But I did not get to give her the copy I wanted her to have. She doesn’t need it now. She can and will know all the things she needs to know. She sometimes mentioned things she wanted to ask about in heaven. Now she can. And, surely, in her joyful entry there and in her current state of bliss, she will be filled with the fulness of Christ.
All the things I miss already just hurt for the here and now.
But there’s no loss for her. Not even of her life. There is life found, joy gained, perfect bliss and satisfaction that can never be taken again. The flowers she loves now will never fade.The path through the eternal garden will not need weeding and it will be even more beautiful than that path on Green Mountain. The banqueting table will be far richer than any Thursday night feast and she can discuss the Scriptures with the ones who wrote them. Maybe she will meet my mother there and she can tell her about my children and my grandchildren that my mother did not get to see. I don’t know all about what she is doing now, but I know this: We are the ones who are missing. She is not missing a thing!
On the last night that I was with Pat, at Marvin’s, she told me about her recent prayers. She expressed to me her deep desire for the people she loved to be in heaven with her. She spoke about some recent decisions she and Mike had made and she plainly said that the reason for these choices was to reach someone she loved with the saving truth. I am going to keep praying for her influence and choices in life to yield the results for which she was praying so very hard.
I miss her so much. I wish I could have said a temporary farewell. But she has already “fared well.” Because she trusted God and obeyed Him, I’ll get to hear her eternal welcome in that morning of joy. I miss her, but she is not missing a thing. The valley of the shadow of death is, in reality, the frightening vale we all travel every day. One day the shadow will lifted by a Lamb that is all the light. I’m dreaming about asking her a few things when we are exploring mansions again in a place where there are no bullet-holes.We’ll have all the time in the world, plus infinite, eternal time!
It’s hard for us because it was so sudden, so final, and so irreversible. And those are the exact reasons that have made the transition so very wonderful for her. I cannot change the way we miss her…yet.
But one sweet day, I’ll take a place at the very throne of God, where none of us will miss a thing!
Having spent the last several days in the Word and working on our next year’s Dgging Deep study, I have come, as is the case, every single year, to love the Word more; all of it, for every single aspect of my life, for all of my days. I think that’s what digging in the Word does for sisters…it just sets our affections more firmly on things above. Another thing that gives me a more focused heavenward view is the deaths of people I love. For all of us, the number of loved ones who’ve passed into eternity grows each year. (In fact, this year seemed to have more sad goodbyes than most, for me.) 
One simple photo (above) that Lori Morris sent to me yesterday morning speaks volumes about her legacy. (Lori took this shot of her tv screen as she live-streamed at home with a sick child.) Here’s Sarah’s 14-year-old son, David, on the morning after his mother peacefully went away with the angels, at worship services with the church, serving on the communion table and commemorating the One who gave him and Kate and Mike the hope that now sustains them.
Here we are at Polishing the Pulpit-Branson 2024! All the children, but especially Eliza Jane are so excited to be “shleeping “ in a palace. “I never shleeped in a palace afore!” I never did either and, believe me, after 12 hours in that car with those three, their mom and I were ready for some “sleep” in a palace or standing up in a barn. Literally, the question “How many more hours?” must have been asked 50 times from those back seats. Not exaggerating. It started when we were twenty minutes from the house.