It is
with much sadness and a broken heart that I try
to write of
Mommy. She was born on April 21, 1930 in
Rowan County,
Kentucky and was the daughter of the
late James
Matthew and Mary Tennie Caudill Gregory.
She was married
to Donald Cox on September
3, 1953 in
Maysville, Kentucky. They had 3 daughters, Brenda (Dennis)
Cox Rison of
Beavercreek, Ohio, Anita (Wilbur) Cox Thompson
of Hillsboro,
Kentucky and Donna (Thomas) Cox Garner of
Dayton, Ohio. She
also leaves to mourn her passing 8 grandchildren,
10 great
grandchildren, three brothers and two sisters.
She meant the world to her family and the
silence of her sweet
voice is almost
deafening at times. Mommy was one of those people
that once you met
her you never ever forgot her. Mommy was saved
at her home in
Beavercreek, Ohio in October of 1980. She was baptized
by ministers of
the Old Regular Baptist Church, Elders Tennis
Sturgill and
Melvin Watts. She was baptized in the little Miami River
in Beavercreek,
Ohio. From that time on she was on top of the world.
She couldn’t do
enough to help the church and her brothers and sisters
of the church.
Any time she heard about someone needing help,
Mommy was one of
the first ones at the door whether it was to work,
give money or
just lend a shoulder to cry on. That’s just the type of
person Mommy was.
She was a lot like that even before she joined
the church, but
when the Lord saved her, she just couldn’t do enough
for everyone she
met.
Sadly, though, in June of 1997 we thought our
world had
crumbled. That’s
when mommy had a crippling stroke. She lost the
use of her left
hand and she thought her world would stop also. Because
she could no
longer do things on her own, she felt like a burden
to her family.
Lord knows, that was never the case. What her
family did for
her was nothing more than what she would have done
for them had the
tables been turned.
The most heartbreaking time, however, was when
Mommy’s mind
started to fail
her. We never had such a helpless feeling in our lives.
We did what we
could for her, but the rest was up to her Lord Jesus.
More and more as
the end neared, you could hear her asking the
Lord to take her
home and to look after her good companion and her
children. She
talked about going home from the day she was saved,
but after her
stroke, her longing became stronger and stronger.
The last time Mommy attended church was the
weekend communion
in November of
2003 at the Little Mary Church, which I’ll
never forget. It
was the last time she had the strength to bend and
wash her sisters
feet. It was such a blessing to her and even more so
to this daughter
who watched and tried to help keep her steady so she
wouldn’t fall.
To Mommy’s earthly brothers and sisters, and
brothers and sisters
of the Little
Mary Church, House of Prayer Church in
Beavercreek, and
Mt. Sterling Church, you will never know what
your visits meant
to Mommy when she become partially and later
permanently
bedfast and unable to attend church. She loved you all
with every ounce
of her being and loved to hear your voices singing
the old songs of
Zion. She said often that your voices sounded like
the very angels
of Heaven.
To Daddy, the hardest part for Brenda and me
during those last
few weeks was
watching the hurt and sadness in your eyes and knowing
there wasn’t one
thing we could do to ease it. Your love for
Mommy shone all
around her to the very end and I know she felt it.
That’s why she
opened her eyes. So she could tell you she knew and
to say goodbye.
Sisters, sons-in-law, grandchildren and
great-grandchildren, I had
the privilege of
being able to take communion with and wash
Mommy’s feet
several times, and I will never be able in this lifetime
to explain the
heart-felt blessing from above that I received being
able to do that.
I can only hope that you will be able to know that
feeling on the
other side of Jordan. I know that Mommy’s dying wish
was to know that
she would see her family again in Heaven. I also
know that when
our time comes, she will be standing with outstretched
arms waiting to
greet us there, just as she did so many times here on
earth. Make
arrangements this day to see her again so our chain will
remain unbroken.
Written by her heartbroken daughter, Anita.
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