Last Updated on 3/20/2010

Published on 4/17/2009

By Robbin Bruce

Well, I've walked around the house for about two days now, avoiding the inevitable. Sooner or later I had to make myself sit down at the keyboard and get back to work. After last week, I figured it would take me a while, but if you knew my Mother, you know the first thing she would have said is, “Get over it, and get back to work.”
You see last Monday, my Momma passed away.
Totally out of the blue, we were not looking for it. And to say that last week was devastating, would be an understatement.
The same way it was when Daddy passed on, and for a couple weeks I kinda walked around in a funk ’til one morning Miss Melva called the house, and the words that lady said still rings in my ears, “Things like this are gonna happen, we just got to pick our selves up and keep on going.”
So that's why I'm sitting here in front of the keyboard. Life sends us foul balls, and somehow, we’ve got to curve them round some and go for the wall. If you know my family, you know for the past month, to say it's been rough, would be an understatement. But like my Daddy always said when things got a little rough, “Do what you can, and can the rest.”
I finally realized the other day what he meant by that, you do what you can, and the Lord expects that of you, and HE'll take care of the rest. That's hard sometimes, that's where faith comes in, cause if you don't have faith, some day you'll realize you’re standing there all by your self, and that's a lonely place to be.
Within a few minutes of my Mother's passing, like the country song, “You find out who your friends are,” we did too.  Even ’til today. Because the outpouring of love that has been extended to the Bruce family is unbelievable.
That night, Momma's front yard was full, with cars lined up on both sides of the road.  With every “I loved her,” came the words, “What can I do?” And these words were not expressed lightly, they were heartfelt, because of the many lives she touched, they felt that somehow, someway, they needed to repay the love she had shown them.
Everyone that knew her, and that while she would have given you the shirt off her back, with her independent streak, sometimes it made it hard for her to receive the same. Even when she had her knee operations, if I offered to cut her grass, she look at me, and tell me she'd cut it herself. And she did.
I have a friend, who spent his growing years up North. He told me he just couldn't believe what he was seeing. He said, that a lot of times you don’t even know your neighbor next to you. But down South it's different, your neighbor might be next door, or ten miles away, or further.
Within an hour and a half, people were bringing food to the house. And next few days, we could have fed a company of Marines. Cakes, pies, chicken, anything your heart every desired for a midnight snack, we had plenty and more coming.
And the flowers, my Momma loved flowers.
I have the ability to kill flowers just by looking at them, but she didn't have a green thumb, she had a green hand.  She would have been thrilled to be able to have taken care of all those ferns, lilies, and all the others that I haven't a clue to what the names are. But I guess that left it to us.
At the end of the service on Friday, as we were following her out, Mr. Dan Newton, stood up and strapped on his guitar. And in that low melodious voice of his, he sang for her, “I'll meet you in the Rapture.”
For several days after that, that song kinda nagged at me, but I couldn't figure it out. I know it was sad, but there was something more. Then I figured it out. As she was passing by all her friends and family as she was passing through the church, it was as if she was saying to each and every one of us, don't be sad, one day I will see you again.
And then at the graveside, he sang, “Will the Circle be Unbroken.” Which if you knew anything about my family, you knew it was like her telling us, while the circle of our lives might have a few cracks now, one day, it will be whole once again.
So to friends and family, to anyone who has touched our lives in this trying time, we, the Sons of DC and Archie Bruce, say thank you.

Robbin  Bruce is an Andrews resident. He may be reached via e-mail at robbinbruce@yahoo.com, or by letter in care of this newspaper, P.O. Box 2778, Georgetown, S.C, 29442.