Aunt Virginia Dances in Heaven

My aunt Virginia Boyd went home to be with the Lord this week. She was a woman of faith and courage who had lived with a chronic, difficult illness for many years. She had contracted a rare blood condition that continually threatened and weakened her immune system many years ago. It caused her to have to seek experimental treatments to keep alive, often accompanied by long stays in the hospital.

Virgina Stephens Boyd lived a life that was hard, but she always met the challenges with a strong faith, a constant sense of good humor, and a beautiful smile. Her witness to the world was one of strength in the face of difficulty, and of believing in God's ultimate grace in the pits of situations that would put many of us into deep depression and despair.

Even before her own illness, Virginia lost her only daughter, Cathy Boyd, to leukemia at the age of 15. It was a terrible tragedy to lose such a bright child as Cathy, who had her own great courage in the face of devastating illness. I remember going to a movie with Cathy and Virginia, "The Summer of '42," when Cathy was having treatments in Gainesville, Florida in the early seventies while I was in college at the University of Florida. They were still smiling and fighting, though the prognosis was bleak. But then Virginia had to do that act that is always so out of sync with the natural thythms of life -- she had to bury her child.

However, Aunt Virginia always had a well of dignity and compassion that she could drink from, because of her strong faith in the Lord. Cathy's death devastated my Uncle Henry also, but Virginia nursed him back from depression with her good cheer and love and prayer. She was a model wife and mother and aunt. Even when Uncle Henry also died of leukemia in the early nineties, Virginia's faith, and her loving sisters, kept her moving ahead, living for Jesus and contributing to the world.

When I saw her for the last time on this earth, when I was in Florida with my brother in August, she was very weak physically. But the quick mind was active and that gentle smile was there, and she was asking about my wife and children, as he always did. She was always hoping and praying for the best for all of us. She continued to have great love and compassion for my mother, my sister, my brother and myself, long after Uncle Henry, my mother's brother, and my dad Sherman had gone on to be with the Lord.

Yes, my aunt Virginia is gone and the world is not quite as good a place without her here. But there is a new woman dancing in heaven with her beloved husband, and pausing to hold her daughter's hand, all of them rejoicing with theier Lord and Savior. And I am sure taht sweet woman will be waiting at Heaven's gate when we all get there, too. And she will be smiling that gentle smile, filled with intelligence and faith.