Dear Momma: Love Letters to Heaven

By Patricia Annette Tompkins Dunaway

One hot July day, on a return trip home from New Orleans, Trish Dunaway received a call from Mercer University police: Call your mother. As the minutes raced by, she learned the tragic news: her ninety-three-year-old mother had been instantly killed in a traffic accident.

Her mothers story is a remarkable one: growing up in the 1920s in the Charleston, South Carolina Orphan House, losing her husband to cancer as a young married woman, and growing into a much-loved and honored prayer warrior.

Trish gave herself a year to journal her grief. Through prayer, the ministry of the saints, journaling and poetry, Scripture, and memories of her Low Country heritage, she learned to choose Gods comfort He offered through a walk into His mercy and grace.

She shares her journey during the year following her mothers death as she learns how God teaches us to listen for His comfort in the face of despair.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449747855

Patricia Annette Tompkins Dunaway

Trish Dunaway is a National Board Certified teacher of the gifted in Macon, Georgia. Her husband, John, is a professor of French at Mercer University. They have three children and six grandchildren. Her faith journey is the heart of this, her first published book.

Book preview

Dear Momma:

Love Letters to Heaven

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Patricia Annette Tompkins Dunaway

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Copyright © 2012 by Patricia Annette Tompkins Dunaway.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4784-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4785-5 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-4783-1 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012906594

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission." (www.Lockman.org)

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

WestBow Press rev. date: 05/22/2012

Contents

Preface

Death

(July 17, 2008)

Decisions

We Want Her Back

She’s Ready

The Funeral

Going Home

Peace

(July 24, 2008)

Letter To The Church And Loved Ones

(July 24, 2003)

The Room

(July 26, 2008)

Buttons And Figs

(Tuesday, July 29)

Cedar Chest And Closet

(August 9, 2008)

The First Christmas

(December, 2008)

The Letters

(Christmas, 2008)

Transition: The Pantry

(December 28, 2008)

Bathroom, Hazel, And Boot

(January 24, 2009)

The Green X

(March 6, 2009)

Happy Birthday

(March 7, 2009)

The Prayer

(March 11, 2009)

The Overcomer

(March 14, 2009)

Charleston Orphan House At Thanksgiving

Beverly

The Shower, Cherry Blossoms, And Hummers

(March 22, 2009)

The Green X

(March 26, 2009)

On The Road

(April 1, 2009)

Momma’s Notes

Songs Of Joy

(April 5, 2009)

Blizzards

(April 10, 2009)

Easter Sunday

(April 11, 2009)

The Dream

(Monday, April 13)

Forever

(April 18, 2009)

The Bed

Mother’s Day And The Spearpoint

(May 10, 2009)

The Love Letters

(May 24, 2009)

The God Of All Comfort

(June 2, 2009)

Petunias, Take-Backs, And Tadpoles

Father’s Day

(June 21, 2009)

The Wedding

(July 11, 2009)

One-Year Anniversary

(July 17, 2009)

Memorial Tributes From The Grandchildren

Sharing The Journey

For Further Reflection

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Thoughts from the Woman at the Well

Christ in me, the Hope of Glory,

Full of grace and truth,

Dwelling in me, working through me,

His loving water-giving life.

May His grace be all-consuming,

His influence be my guide.

May my life reflect His presence,

And His love be like a tide

Flowing in, flowing out.

When I thirst, He bids me Welcome.

Salvation’s well He gave for all,

The wells are deep, the water pure

He fills each cup, however small.

His grace, sufficient for the labor,

Gives me strength, destroys the doubt.

His plan He’s bringing to completion

By His indwelling flowing in, flowing out,

Flowing in, flowing out.

(Elma Brooks Hickman Tompkins, 12-8-96)

His goodness and mercy have blessed me all the days of my life, and continue to sustain every step I take.

Brooks Tompkins

March 7, 1915–July 17, 2008

(From her journals)

Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along.

--Song of Songs 2:10

Dedication:

To my sweet family and my brothers and sisters in Christ who know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will all be reunited on heaven’s shores one fine day.

Haste Thee on from grace to glory,

Armed by faith and winged by prayer,

Heaven’s eternal day’s before Thee,

God’s own hand shall guide thee there.

Soon shall close thy earthly mansion,

Swift shall pass thy pilgrim days,

Hope shall change to glad fruition,

Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

Henry F. Lyte

Preface

Call your mother, John says as he is dialing the coroner. No answer at home. Yes. Yes. When was this? It is coming to him now, and tears fill his eyes. I do not believe, but a coldness is overtaking me. Trish, he chokes out, your mother was killed today pulling out of the grocery store parking lot.

And so began a year of journaling my grief, a year’s journey without my sweet ninety-three-year-old Momma who had lived in our home for twenty-eight years. No more old-timey banana pudding, no more trips with her to Charleston to see her younger (then ninety years old) sister, no more listening to her infectious laugh or working together on baby quilts. Momma was gone.

I had always wished that the Lord would just take her quietly one night as she drifted off to sleep after watching her beloved Atlanta Braves game, or after an Easter egg hunt with her precious great-grandchildren, or after a walk at sunset on Pawley’s Island. He did not choose a quiet moment. She was instantly killed in a violent traffic accident pulling out of a grocery store parking lot, on her way home to cook supper for me and John as we returned from New Orleans.

She missed a year of happy family events: grandson Joseph graduating from college and the whirl of his marriage that summer, a cowgirl birthday party for great-granddaughter Clary, the baptism of John Michael Gale Dunaway, dance recitals with great-grands Marion Alice and Audie Brooks, Jack’s soccer games, and the excitement of hugging Toby, the mascot at Mercer University basketball games, with Charlie John.

And we missed her. Now, more than three years later, I still think of her every day. I am her only child. She loved me as purely as any mother can. I keep a stack of family pictures in the sweetgrass basket beside her plate at our supper table. I dream about her. I pass over her death site every day going to work.

I am still healing. Our Lord is faithful—in joy and in sorrow. He was faithful to me in my time of deep distress and in the loneliness that follows the death of a loved one. I’m sharing with you portions of my Momma book, my journal through that first year following her death. The Bible says all believers are saints by calling. She was a remarkable saint. I pray my words will give you comfort and remind you that the God of all comfort is always there, loving us, guiding us, and taking our hand at death to cross over that great divide into the Promised Land.

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Daddy and Momma: Lowie and Elma Brooks Hickman Tompkins

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Death

(July 17, 2008)

John and I had gone to New Orleans to visit our son, Joseph, for a few days. He had met Lauren there and fallen in love. Momma originally said she would go with us too, but as the departure day drew nearer, she changed her mind. It was a long drive, hard on the bones of a ninety-three-year-old. We promised to call her every night and take lots of pictures.

My last conversation with her from New Orleans was full of descriptions of Lauren, how happy they both seemed, and how glad Momma was that she had decided to stay home rather than fight the brutal New Orleans humidity in the middle of July. I promised we would share all about the trip when we got home. Love you, and see you soon.

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