One needs a huggin and one needs a spankin’ and---one’s on the way! Thoughts on the wisest mother, I've met.

1 Corinthians 13--Love is the more excellent way.

What a blessed memory to see Mother Walker and her vast heart knowledge of 15 children. She was a treasure trove. She was truly a helpmeet answering to the extremity of the husband that God had given her. The Reverend was a man of the word and precision. His words were severe and manifold and hers were few and a balm. She lay on a bed of sickness for most of the years that I knew her. Still, her healing words and healthful demeanor sat more with me than anything else about her. I tried to pry words out of her, about other things. “How can I do what you do?” Was my ulterior motive. She wasn’t giving out that secret easily.

Somehow it seemed to lie in the way she cooked a turkey. Here, Jayne, she said to me, one Thanksgiving eve. Take the leg and work this turkey with me. We massaged the seasonings into the bird. It is in the wrists. I wanted to say what Ez says to me on the courts. Let me have your racket, It looks like you have a string attached from your racket to the ball and I want mine to have that. Mom, you have some magic power when it comes to your children, don't you? No, it doesn’t come by basting or by marinating. "Just sitting the chicken or the turkey in the juices is not the trick to what I do", says Mother Walker. (I'm talking in present tense because she is still mothering us from heaven.) It is in the wrist work and your hands will get red and buttery from the seasonings and you might cut yourself on a bone or two when you go to get the seasonings on the inside of the turkey. But, it is not something that happens automatically in any way shape or form. You have to purpose it and get your hands dirty.

Lorretta Lynn acted it out. Mother Walker’s hands were on the radio whenever the Pastor said we are praying for the children. Her hands were on her children at all appropriate moments that they needed it and her hands were dirtied with the paprika and butter mixture that God had given her. God gave me this season to get God’s love into them and I am about that and that alone,she instructed, by her obedience to the call, because that is God’s priority. Love is the priority for the children. Why? I questioned so often. Why is love the priority in childhood? She said God will have to show you that, by her wordless expressions. I am still seeking the answer.