you are my sunshine

Well, there she is, sitting in the grass, at home in the world. Our first born. The beginning of a family that stirs my heart. She loves her brothers, does Jessica. So much so that after being away at school for two years, she wanted to come home to go to Georgia State because she missed them so. Do they know that?

Brave and true. Off she went to a performing arts camp when just 15.When I called , missing her so, they found her under a bed, so homesick and yet, she went off to college in the mountains where she graduated first in her class. Determined.

The day we dropped her off at Brevard, I got in the wrong car to go home and only the growling of a large dog clued me in. I was lost and numb and thought I would never recover but I did and she did.

I always marveled at her goodness; forever seeing the good in people and helping with an open heart, guiding girl runners as a mother would, tutoring other classmates to the detriment of her own studies and cheering on her brother's many accomplishments. I used to wonder; where did this person come from, what cloud did she step off to come and be the best of us ? Jessica.

And I was not alone in seeing this. A few years back she heard from an old high school acquaintance.This young woman  just wanted Jessica to know that she had named her daughter after her. She wanted her daughter to be a good , kind, caring child of God and so she named her after the one girl she remembered as being all those things. Can you imagine the honor of hearing that ?That a beautiful girl bears your name because of your unforgettable goodness? That old friend got it right.

One Mother's Day, many years ago, she played a Jermaine Jackson  record entitled "Mother" for me.I still have the words in my treasure box. That moment touched me in a place that I guard and so I will sing a song back to her:

                                    "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine
                                      you make me happy when skies are grey.
                                        you'll never know dear, how much I love you,
                                          please don't take my sunshine away."