Letting Go (Triple Eight Ranch) - By Mary Beth Lee Page 0,43
she spoke. Looking at Jed made Mackenzie’s first words all too uncomfortable.
Fortunately, her answer seemed to appease the little girl.
“You doing okay?” Jed’s voice sounded deeper than normal, and she knew he’d been worried about where the conversation was headed.
She turned to him, tried not to think about being Mackenzie’s next momma. Not that Jed thought…“As well as I can be, I guess.”
“We’re here for you,” he said.
And she nodded because she didn’t want to say that was a serious problem.
When she walked into the church, Clarissa was stunned by the turnout for her mother’s memorial. Mrs. Norene and Lester Pyle, Miss Topkins, Doc Anson and his wife, Pete and Bev and Bev’s kids, The Rains family, José and the other ranch hands.
“There are so many people,” she said, surprised.
“This is Stearns, and you’re one of us,” Jed said.
At the front of the church a poster sized photo of Tammy Jo with Moo behind her stood next to an urn and several flowers, plants and wreaths. As she moved forward people offered hugs and handshakes, I’m sorries and we’re praying for you’s. The experience was surreal.
She sat in the front row and prepared herself for a funeral service of platitudes given by a man who didn’t really know Tammy Jo. Instead Pastor West stood and told an amazing story.
“I didn’t know Tammy Jo Dye until a short time ago when she made her way to Stearns upon seeing her daughter on the national news after our tornado. Some of you here might not know Miss Dye’s story, but if you do, you know she’d gone through a miraculous change recently. When she came to me to say she wanted to accept Christ, but she wasn’t sure she was worthy, I assured her none of us were, but he accepted us anyway.”
Someone said amen.
The preacher’s words surprised and soothed Clarissa. As the minister told stories about Tammy Jo that made people laugh, Clarissa couldn’t help but realize the people here had accepted her mother more than she had. But they didn’t know….Only, listening to the preacher it sounded like maybe some of them did know.
“Paul Dillon introduced Tammy Jo Dye to Jesus, just as he has so many other people in Stearns. He asked to speak a few words about her.”
Jed’s father walked up to the stage in jeans, a pressed white shirt. He held his cowboy hat in his hands.
He stood at the front of the church and cleared his throat before speaking.
“Tammy Jo Dye made no secret about her original reason for coming to Stearns. She came to swindle us if she could. Instead she fell in love with our city and the people in it. She loved her daughter, but she said she wasn’t very good at showing it. When I found her crying in a horse stall one morning, I thought maybe she’d had enough of the hard work, but that wasn’t it at all. She’d been mucking out a stall, and God convicted her fully. She knew she’d done wrong and wanted to make things better. For the last few days she’d struggled with forgiving herself, but she knew Jesus had paid the price and she was forgiven. I hope in her death others will come to know God. He changed Tammy Jo Dye, and He can change anyone if they’re willing to let him.”
Clarissa kept her eyes on the photo of her mother the whole time Paul spoke. But she couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he told the story that she’d read in her mother’s journal. She prayed her mother found the peace she’d searched for before her death.
One of the girls who’d worked at the church shelter with Clarissa stood to sing Amazing Grace and the pastor finished the service by reminding them all that if they wanted the Lord to be part of their lives all they had to do was believe.
Clarissa couldn’t help but wonder if it really was that easy.
After the service Jed picked up the urn and his parents told her they’d have all the plants delivered to the bunkhouse if she’d like or they’d keep them in their house. Susie Dillon gave her one of those digital photo frames with photos of her mother working around the Triple Eight. In all of them Tammy Jo looked happy. At peace. Her eyes looked tired, though. Like some part of her knew her body was shutting down.
These were the first pictures Clarissa’d ever owned of her mother, and she