A Tribute to Lillian Howard (1894 – 1994)
by Therese Boucher
It’s hard work to say god bye and let go. Isn’t it. The last several times I visited Aunt Lillie, I would say, “Good Bye.” and she would say, “Good bye, Therese.” Then when I would see her again in a few months she would say, “I can’t understand why I’m not upstairs yet.”
But today we have finally come to the last “Good Bye – Good Bye to a gentle woman, like Mary.” Good bye to a woman who had a gentle touch with a pie crust. Good bye to a woman who was gentle and thoughtful enough to send birthday cards, to write letters, and to buy little children outfits for their first day of school.Good bye to a woman gentle enough to bury her sister with her own brand new crystal beads because, as she said, “Nothing is too good for my sister after all she has done for me.”Good bye to a woman gentle and patient enough to take care of desperately ill people like Mrs. Roy and Aunt Hattie. Good bye to a woman so gentle that when she wore a ghoulish costume to a family Halloween party no one suspected that it was her. Everyone was surprised.
But it’s no surprise, because gentle does not mean weak. Aunt Lillie knew how to face the ugliness, the problems, and the troubles in herself and in all of us. She was not weak. She was strong enough to raise a child alone. She was strong enough to straighten out two teenage girls when she herself was an elderly woman. She was strong enough to admonish me to learn to drive. When I was studying for a new career at 33, she told me I should also take driving lessons. Aunt Lillie asked, “Will you sign up for classes if I pay for them? ” And she did just that. She was strong enough to laugh when I visited and asked how she was. Her answer was punctuated by soft giggles, “I can’t see. I can’t hear. I can’t walk. I can’t even go to the bathroom by myself; but other than that I’m fine.”
I used to wonder how she could be so gentle and so strong. One day I found a clue. There was a shot glass, actually it was Aunt Hattie’s shot glass, on the glass table by her chair. When I asked her what it was for, I discovered the source of her strength. She kept a nickel in the glass to remind herself to pray a decade of the rosary for any one of us who wasin trouble. It you were in big trouble there was a quarter to remind her to pray a whole rosary for you. Aunt Lillie knew the power and the strength and the gentleness of God’s love for us. Do you know that same power? It’s there for the asking.
I know another secret about her strength and gentleness. A few years ago when I was praying for Aunt Lillie, I had a dream. I saw her walking slowly alongside a fence with labored and pain-filled steps. She was so tired that she stopped to rest and to look up at what was on the other side of the fence. There she saw a bright golden light. As she looked at the warm, dazzling light all her aches and pains melted away, until she was able to climb over the fence and get closer. When she did, the light turned into Jesus, and she ran toward him laughing. She ran toward the light and the fire and the power that is God’s love.
My little daughter, Catherine Lillian, asked me a question at the wake. She wanted to know if Aunt Lillie had on purple shoes to match her dress, or black shoes. I knew the answer from my dream. “Katie, she has no shoes on. She doesn’t need them to run to Jesus.”
PS. The funeral director was astonished by what I said about her shoes. It turns out that he had known her well and remembered her difficulties with her feet. So out of respect, he had buried her without shoes, for the ONLY time in him long career.