The Ghost In Her Closet

If you are a regular reader of Pastor Rick’s Study you know that nothing has been written here for some time. I hope now that I will be able to write on a more regular basis. Among all the busy things taking place in my life including my church and preparing for a first of its kind Pastor’s Conference for Cuban Pastors and their wives later this month, my mother had been dealing with terminal cancer. I have made three 1,500 kilometre trips in recent weeks. These things have made it difficult to have the time to write.

My mother died on September 19,2012. I shared some memories at her memorial service. I have debated for many days about sharing them here. They are personal words. Originally I shared them so that mourners could better understand my mother and her life. I share them here (slightly edited) because I believe they speak to the patience and grace of a loving Heavenly Father who graciously pursues us to woo us to Himself. September 21, 2012

Memories of Mom

The Ghost In Her Closet

My Mom was born in the glory days of the small coal mining town of Springhill, NS in the 1920's. She was the middle of three daughters born to Ben and Ina McAloney.   Springhill was a working man’s town where Mom learned the value of hard work, and where she develop tenacity to face the hard struggles of life.   Those struggles were soon to come.

She married Blaine Hayden, my father, at a very early age. Together they had three children, Lyndia my sister, Larry my brother, and myself Rick the baby of the family. I’m sure that like all young couples they started out with great dreams and hopes. Our father worked in town, and was an aspiring professional boxer who actually trained with Joe Louis and it is claimed he should have been the British Commonwealth Champion.

I never really knew my father. Alcohol got the better of him and when we were all very young my mother and he split up and eventually divorced in a day when that carried a heavy stigma. I saw him only once again some 30 years or more later at my grandmother Hayden’s funeral. My mother was left with three little kids and no means of support. In the early 50's there was little in the way of a social safety net. My mother struggled to provide for and to hold her little family together.

I’m not perfectly clear on those early years as I was only about 3 years old, but I know she worked where she could including cleaning rooms in a Springhill Hotel. I can still see that hotel in my minds eye and I can picture my Mom coming home from work. I have no idea who looked after us while she was there. She also worked as a live in housekeeper for our local MLA and I remember riding out a hurricane in that house.

I also remember "Mato Face" . I actually knew "Mato Face" - he lived nearby and I’d see him outside in the yard. Over the years, my family has laughed itself silly hearing mom tell stories about "Mato face." It didn’t matter how many times we heard the story we’d laugh and laugh. We laughed so hard all Mom had to do is say "Mato Face, Mato Face" and we’d be rolling in tears of laughter. I don’t think any of us actually remember the whole story we just had to hear her say "Mato face" and we were gone.

It became impossible for Mom to keep us all together as there was very little if any help available. In the end, in order to provide for her family, Mom did perhaps the most difficult and loving thing a mother could do in those circumstances. She made a decision to place her children in other homes to be cared for. This is a decision that became a ghost in my mother’s closet that would haunt her for pretty much the rest of her life. It was that which pained her heart through the years.

My sister Lyndia went to live with my Grandmother Hayden in Springhill. There was a couple without children who begged my mother to allow them to adopt my brother Larry. What else was she to do? Here was an opportunity to give him the care she thought she never could. I was the baby and so I was to live with Mom.

Separating us kids, especially putting Larry up for adoption, was the hardest and most courageous thing my mother could do but as I said it would haunt her the rest of her life. We never really talked about it until more recent years but I knew this decision was always in the back of her mind, it never left her and I’m sure she felt the judgment of others who thought they knew better.

In 1955-56 my Mom and I left Springhill and moved to Saskatchewan with her sister, Aunt Eleanor and Uncle Ed and their family. We lived with them and they became my family. Mom worked in the Officers Mess on the Air Force base and in a local restaurant where she was one of the very first people to cook Kentucky Fried Chicken. I remember going there and sitting up on the stool at the counter like a big shot and my Mom bringing me some pop and food. Anything I wanted.

Mom and I would joyfully write letters to my sister and brother in Nova Scotia and I can remember with great excitement wrapping up Christmas presents and taking them to the Post Office to mail. At first we’d get letters back but I also remember my disappointment when we stopped receiving those letters from my brother. I can only imagine how Mom must have been feeling. Years later we learned that our letters and gifts never did make it to my brother. Through the years, Mom would trace his steps and follow his life and seek to make contact whenever she could but with no response and the ghost in her closet would continue to haunt her. She never stopped loving him, or us.

In spite of the hardship in her life and the lingering pain in her heart, my Mom was a tough old bird, she refused to be depressed, and her tenacity carried her through. My sister Lyndia and I are a lot like her in that way. Without ever saying a lot she taught us to work hard and face the hardships of life head on without a lot of whining. She had a good sense of humour and taught us to laugh. "Mato Face" "Mato Face".

I guess you would say we were the working poor. Mom always tried to provide by working at some job even if it wasn’t very high paying. We didn’t have much but we were warm, happy and fed. When I was about 10 yrs old we lived in a little 2 room house in the Landladies backyard. We had a trap door in the floor to put the milk and eggs, an outhouse out back and Mom had an old record player and one 45rpm record of Kitty Wells or Patsy Cline or some country singer and we’d listen to one song over and over and over and over again. I’m sure she must have worried at times where we’d get our next meal but there was always something and on Sundays our Landlord who was a Chinese Cook would invite us up for supper. What a treat and Mom would sit around for hours playing cards, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea and probably a few beer.

Eventually my Uncle Ed was stationed in Toronto and we all moved there. Mom met an old Springhill friend name Al Dunphy whom she married in 1961. Al and I never really got along but he and Mom built a good life together. They were just hardworking working class people. This stability opened up an opportunity that I am sure absolutely thrilled my mother. When I was about 12 or 13 my sister Lyndia came to live with us in Toronto. In some ways she was a stranger to me because we had never lived together since we were very young. I soon learned that my sister could be a pest sending me to the store for her several times an evening. When I’d say no, she’d go to Mom and coax Mom to make me go. Sometimes Mom would make me go and sometimes she say "Lyndia, he’s already gone for you twice already. Leave him alone." I think she favoured Lyndia a little bit in those days simply because she was so delighted to have at least two of us together again. (Said jokingly).

Mom and Al never owned a car but eventually bought a house in Toronto. They worked hard, paid their bills and never went in debt. They saved up and paid cash for everything. They never had much, but they were good honest people. Mom always wished she had something to leave us all. Back in about 1972 on a trip to the Maritimes from Ontario, I bought this plastic lobster for Mom. (Hold up lobster). Its been in the family for 40 years. You might say it’s a family Heirloom. For years we’ve joked with Mom about who was going to get the Lester the Lobster when she’s gone. We all heard how families fight over things and who’s going to get what when their loved ones pass away so we decided this is it. I lost, and I"m stuck with Lester the Lobster.(My grand niece Evie says his name is "Snappy").

Eventually my sister Lyndia got married and had two children - Tracy and Nat. My Mom took great joy in her granddaughters and eventually her grandchildren right up to the day she died. The same is true when I got married and had children, Heidi, Amy, and Tim. For a time Mom lived with us in the Moncton area and then moved to the Saint John area closer to Lyndia. I have to say my sister and my two nieces were wonderful to my Mom. They loved her and cared for her and included her in so many things they did.

Mom was a forgiving, caring person. She never held a grudge. This was displayed so powerfully when after being divorced from my father for many years, she returned to Springhill to care for his mother, my Grandmother Hayden in her dying days. Mom was a walking encyclopaedia of family information. She knew everybody’s birthday and anniversary and important dates. She faithfully sent cards and letters to family and friends year after year after year. Just a few weeks ago while in the Hospice, she wrote a series of letters to friends and family, including me. They loved her at Bobby’s Hospice, (a fantastic palliative care facility in Saint John, New Brunswick) they thought she was a real sweetheart who never complained and had a quick wit and sense of humour that brightened their day. Her only complaint was she couldn’t get up to walk and would say she wanted to go dancing.

Mom lived a good and happy life, but you will never understand her, if you don’t understand the Ghost in Her Closet. The one that haunted her all her life. It left deep scares that took a lifetime to heal. She longed for the day when she would have all three of her children together. Her soul longed for release from the guilt and the pain she felt for the decision she made some 59 years ago.

Early in my life, at the age of 12 I came to know Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour and Lord. Mom never took me to church but I know she was proud of the fact that I went and certainly was proud when I became a Pastor. My sister Lyndia also became a born again Christian. Over the years our greatest desire was to see our Mom also come to know forgiveness and eternal life through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We longed for her to know His love and acceptance regardless of what ghosts were in her closet. Without being pushy, from time to time we would speak to her about receiving Christ as her Saviour and she would say something like "When I can live the life, I’ll do it." I know that deep down inside she wondered if God could ever accept her, if that ghost could ever be cleared from her closet.

Every Sunday Mom would watch Jerry Falwell on TV and Billy Graham whenever he was on. She was faithful. About 4 years ago she was watching Billy Graham and when he gave the invitation to receive Jesus Christ, my Mom prayed and trusted Jesus to forgive her sins and to be her Saviour. Of course for a long time she was too proud to tell us but she eventually told my sister. The change was slow at first, and frankly I wondered if Mom truly understood what Christ had done for her.

But there was a miracle taking place deep in her heart, slowly but surely as she read her Bible each night the light began to shine into that closet, exposing that Ghost as the fraud that it was and lifting the guilt. I am not aware of all the details, but I understand that a conversation with Pastor Barry Todd not too long ago caused the light of God’s truth to shine full blaze into my mothers soul and my Mom finally dealt with that Ghost in her closet that had haunted and pained her for some 59 years. It was gone and the glorious light of Jesus Christ brought to her the peace, forgiveness and acceptance that had so long eluded her.

My sister and nieces who cared for her so lovingly over these last months tell me that they have never seen her more peaceful, more content and more alive. Jesus Christ came into my mothers life and the Ghost in the Closet had to leave.

Pastor Barry asked Mom recently, "Edith, what are you going to say to Jesus when you see Him."

Her response was simple, powerful, and refreshing. "Jesus I Love You."

We’re going to really miss you Mom. Your Grand Kids and your great Grand Kids are going to really miss you. But we are so thankful that by the grace of God you have been set free from the ghost in your closet and that today you’ve gone dancing with the angels.


What are the Ghosts in your closet? In the words of Betsy Ten Boom, "There is no pit so deep, that the love of God is not deeper still." He is gracious and He is patient and He is lovingly pursuing you to deliver you from the Ghosts in your closet, to bring you forgiveness and a life of peace and joy so that one day, you too, may dance with the angels.