July 9, 2001
CYBERCOLUMN:
Take time for people
___By Donna Van Cleve
___It was our first Sunday in a new church. We lived 20 miles from town and didn’t know a soul in the small community of Dell City in far West Texas.
___ Someone announced that an ordination service for the new pastor was scheduled at 2 p.m. After the morning worship service, a woman approached my parents. She invited our family to come eat lunch with them so we wouldn’t drive all the way home and have to turn around and come right back for the afternoon service.
___Doris Ann and her husband, Burt, had five children and lived on a farm a few miles out of town. Our family of six went home with the Brownfield family of seven, and on the way home, Doris Ann stopped at a small store to pick up 13 pork chops for lunch. She and Mom fried them up for our Sunday dinner.
DONNA VAN CLEVE
___This lady didn’t know us from Adam. She didn’t have a thing prepared for Sunday dinner, and yet that didn’t stop her from inviting us to her home as a gesture of hospitality to a new family in the church and community. We will never forget that act of friendship.
___ We lived there only three short years back in the ‘60s, but we became lifelong friends with the Brownfields and still keep in touch. I know few people who are willing to do what Doris Ann did that day. She was one of the best when it came to putting people and relationships first.
___Nowadays, too many of us sacrifice spontaneous fellowship if our houses aren’t in perfect order or we don’t have a full meal deal already prepared. Drop-in company used to be a welcome respite for folks years ago, but now we get a little miffed if someone stops by our houses unannounced. Heaven forbid a phone call or visit interrupts our favorite television show or football game.
___ My parents, sister and I had the opportunity to attend the Brownfields’ golden wedding anniversary last summer in Van Horn. They had moved away from Dell City years before. Their family farm had become another statistic of the many farms that couldn’t support a family anymore. Burt and Doris Ann entered the teaching profession and impacted so many more people through the years--especially young people.
___Several hundred people of all ages attended the anniversary party, and we were just four of the many lives that had been touched by the Brownfields--especially Doris Ann. You know, I didn’t see one television or vacuum cleaner there showing their support for all the time Doris Ann spent with them. On the contrary, it was a lot of people I saw.
___A few months after that trip, I received an e-mail from Doris Ann’s daughter saying they had brought her home from the hospital in El Paso. We didn’t even realize she was ill. Not long after that, we heard from the family that Doris Ann had gone to be with the Lord. She had wanted to be near the people she loved when her time came.
___ Knowing her, she probably was more concerned about everyone else rather than herself.
___ What will you see when you look back over your life?
___ A clean, but very empty house? Or rather a dirty, and still very much empty house? A silent phone? A pension plan and a nice watch? A worn-out television and memories of TV trivia and sports statistics? Will you know more about the lives of movie and sports stars than you will your own family and neighbors? Will there be someone to hold your hand, or will a cold television remote take the place of that?
___ Remote control. Aptly named, huh? Have we acquired that trait? How good are we at keeping people at a distance? That term definitely did not apply to Doris Ann, though. She loved greatly--and was greatly loved.
___ Donna Van Cleve is director of the public library in Cotulla, a writer, wife, mother and member of First Baptist Church in Cotulla, where she is pianist.
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