Aunt Mary Lois

Jimmy's ninety-year-old aunt, Mary Lois Dewar, passed away Wednesday, and we went to her funeral at First Methodist Church this morning. It was a beautiful celebration of Mary Lois' life. Her niece Emily Anderson, her son-in-law Billy Greer, and our minister Tommy Mason, and John McGowan all spoke, and the choir and congregation sang some of her favorite hymns: "The Old Rugged Cross," "Amazing Grace," and "For All the Saints." She had sung in the choir for over sixty years, and she had the voice of an angel.

Fann Greer, Mary Lois' daughter, lives in Norfolk, Virginia. She loves gardening, as did her mother, and when she got word that Mary Lois had died, she cut armful after armful of flowers from her garden, and she and her husband Billy drove the almost six hundred miles to Valdosta with them in buckets of water on the back seat of their car. When they got to Valdosta, Fann had the florist use them to make the blanket for Mary Lois' casket: it looked like the breath of spring, and Mary Lois would have loved it.