Becky Manaugh

I am no longer answering my phones on Tuesday mornings. This phone call floored me. Literally. A hundred times I have thought over and over. Over and over. I am not angry at Becky leaving. It was so very much for the best. This woman. What a woman! 47 years young. The only reason why she passed on is because she gave up the fight. Her kids were raised and she was ready to go. That's it.

I met Becky way, way back. I can remember that her youngest was maybe 9. My oldest wasn't 2 yet. Greg, (her husband), asked me to come over to the house after church one night saying that I cheer Becky up everytime I'm around her and that she was feeling a little down. That one night led to me coming over at least every Wednesday night after church. Then to virtually every day. It was her sister that told me about my ex cheating on me. I was considered one of the family. That is such an honor to me. I helped cheer her up? She helped me in so many ways that only God himself would understand. This woman is so much like a Mother to me.

Greg taught my second one to walk. I was with Becky when I found I was pg the third time (in three years) and it was her lap I lay my head in when the doctor told me to prepare for Dink to be Down Syndrome (he was wrong). Lay my head in her lap. Becky, how many times have I laid my head in your lap and you stroke my hair cause life once more was hard?

I would have loved to lay my head on Becky's shoulder. This wonderful woman woke up at 30 years of age and couldn't get out of bed. She had rheumatoid arthritis. As much as she hurt everyday, you never heard her complain. Once she asked me to take her to Louisville to the doctor. I had never driven in Louisville so I printed out directions from Yahoo and off we went. I would have done anything for her.

In the doctor office, she's telling this man how when she walks she hears the sound like she's walking on fall leaves. The result? Becky has no joint left in her ankle and it will fuse eventually. The sound was bone on bone. Never did she complain. They put her foot in a device so that when it did fuse, she could still walk.

Funny. Walk. Becky was just beginning to have to use a wheelchair when I came close to her and she hated it. Great pride she took in caring for her family, now she was having trouble lifting pots to fix dinner. Eventually they talked the doctors into giving her new knees. God love her! In less than a month that woman was walking. 2 months they said, before she would heal enough to walk. Bull! I couldn't ever find her. She was EVERYWHERE! She would walk down the road to the store, to her family, to everywhere. I think she'd walked the miles to walmart if she had the energy! I was so happy for her!

Then, the arthritis attacked the new knee joints to the point they were now spreading out and breaking down the joints. Back to a wheelchair she went. Never did she complain. The tower of strength for me. She loved chocolate, desserts and food. I had so much fun with her!! I would bake just for her. Chocolate everything! God I love this woman! She was MY strength. There was no subject I couldn't talk to her about in what ever language I needed to use and for how ever long I needed to go on and on and on about it.

When I did things she didn't approve of she had a way of letting me know she didn't approve of them yet never would she condemn or criticise. To be honest, I don't know what it is she did to let me know she didn't approve, but I knew. Whatever decision I chose, she would always back me on it. She was my support, my security, my safety, my safe haven . . . She would have loved this weather. The sun shining, the daffodiles popping up out of the ground.

When I got divorced, there was no longer anyone to give me grief about going over there. (or calling to see who I was doing what with). I would work in the day, come home, go over to her house afterwards. Right now there are so many memories flooding each day of what we would do together that I don't sleep at night. I try not to cry any longer because my eyes hurt. I remember card games, dinners, snacks, laughs, movies, talking about who we think was good looking on what ever movie, especially star trek. She loved the bald guy. And Sean Connery. But her husband most of all.

I remember her telling me about the arthritis was now attacking her heart and organs. I cried and cried. Becky, I begged, you can't leave me. What will I do without you? You are irreplaceable. No one can do what you do. I need you. She would smile and say, "God will provide." God provided you! I didn't want anyone else!

Often I felt so selfish. Becky had four children of her own. She gave birth to mammoth children. Not a one of them was less than 10lbs. (and I thought 8 1/2 was big). I thought of them as my own family. I got excited at thier accomplishments. Girlfriends, boyfriends, acceptance to college, graduations. Phillip, Adrianna, Nathan and Paul.

I remember Nathan and Phillip once having a tussle on the couch and Nathan giving Phillip 'titty twisters'. Hahahha! Cause Phil screamed out like a girl. To this day I can remember his face and the sound. Adrianna was shaking her head at her brothers and Paul was trying to get involved in the tussle.

Over time I met my husband and this moved me from 5 min away to 1 1/2 hours away. I stopped by one eve because I was picking up my girls and waited and waited. She was out with her sisters for the eve. Greg told me that she wasn't doing well at all. She had lost so much weight. Becky was taller than her husband but was down to 88lbs. He said she looked like someone from a concentration camp. When I got home, I told Dad that she would die before I ever got to see her again.

So I wrote. I had been writing letters through her son's email because I knew it was hard for her to type and get on the computer. I figured at least he could print them off and hand them to her. This time, I took pen and paper. I 'snail mailed' her a letter. I told her over and over again how much I loved her and missed her, sent pictures, every form of contact I had.

Painting the kitchen not two Saturday's ago, I get a phone call from her. I was so delighted. I glowed! My whole spirit was lifted! It's Mama Becky!!! She told me she had an allergy where she couldn't eat anything with flour, starch, no pasta, no cakes, cookies and the list went on and on. I asked, can you have chocolate? Like MnM's? Yes. YES! She said, and I remember it so clearly, "You wouldn't want to see me right now. You wouldn't like how I look." She wasn't depressed or down in the dumps. This woman was chipper and upbeat telling me all this. And when she said she had to go cause her arm was numb, that meant that her arm had been numb for a long time and it was now too heavy for the other arm to hold up. Even in giving me this information, she wasn't complaining.

Last Saturday I was in Madison for Jame's funeral. I had to get gas so I was going to get a bag of MnM's for her. She was just down the road. But somehow, and I can't explain it cause I had it planned all day, I forgot. Now I find out that her family was called to come on Sunday because she wasn't going to last long. She refused to go to the doctor or hospital. They gave her morphine for the pain (morphine never stopped the pain for Mama Becky) She passed on in her sleep. She deserved nothing less.

I wanted to be there. I wished I could have been there. They couldn't find my number. Finally Tuesday Greg found my letter and called me that morning. I fell to the floor. I couldn't hold the phone. I didn't want to breathe any more. I .... cried out, I beat the phone on the wall. I finally, brokenly, told Greg I wanted to know when the funeral arrangements were. I have never spent so long crying consequtively in all my life. I couldn't function. Losing my Grandfather didn't hurt this much, but I wasn't anywhere as near to him as Becky. Oh Becky. Do you know how much I love you? (yes she does)

I can't say that I'm sorry. Becky no longer hurts, she can eat anything and everything she wants. She can do anything and go anywhere. I'm even a little envious, she's with Jesus. There is not one shadow of doubt in my mind. She stuck it out till her children were raised and then let go.

March 13, 2006. Becky finally got her reward for being the wonderful gift from God that she was. If for no other reason in the world than for what she was and did for me, Becky deserved Heaven. God welcomed her in with open arms and told her, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."

I can't type any longer. I can't see my screen.