an ode to Clydella

funny name, isn't it? when she was born her father desperately wanted a boy and wanted to pass on his own name..his name was clyde. so a tiny little girl was born into the world and given the feminized version of clyde for a name. that little girl would someday become the oldest of three girls. her parents were never married...her mother was wild (she could remember visiting bars when she was barely able to talk) and her father was a drunk. her mother left and never returned when she was five, leaving her grandmother to raise the girls. but grandma was old and sick and it didn't last long. clyde wanted to be a parent, but he wanted the bottle more. the orphanage became their home. clydella took care of her sisters and was witness to both of their adoptions. but she was never adopted herself.

she lived in the orphanage until she 18...she was the brighest student in her class and had aspirations of college. but no money. a pastor took her in to live with him and his wife (whom had given birth to twins) clydella helped with the babies in exchange for a place to live and she went to Bible college.

somewhere along the way God had gripped the heart of this orphan and she would be true to him til her last breath. she was determined to stay single and undistracted and to be a missionary in far lands. God had other plans, though, and she met and married a man named Al. Al was one of thirteen kids in his family...his father was a violent drunk. a little old lady next door had offered Al cookies if he would come to church with her, so he went and ended up giving his life to Jesus. He fought in the war and then married Clydella and became a pastor.

They had eight children and life was anything but a bed of roses. Clydella had heart disease and endured many, many operations in her lifetime. This left Al working several jobs at once...preaching, teaching, and other random jobs. Still the two of them were as in love as the day they married...calling each other pet names and teasing. One would never had guessed from their countenances how deep the scars went.

Al passed away almost 13 years ago and took everyone by suprise. No one though Clydella would out live him. No one thought she'd live long without him.

Always one for beating the odds, (the self proclaimed "come back Queen") she mourned her lover and then allowed God to give old dreams back. She taught literacy to adults in her community, chaperoned teenage mission trips in her 70's (and LOVED it), and worked with the 'old people' at her church. She truly lived the years of her life that most people coast through. She drove around a teal sports car and shared Jesus with everyone she met...even her hairdresser whom she candidly told shouldn't be working a second job at Hooters because it was beneath her. Deeply loved and sharp as a tack...Clydella was someone whose presence you couldn't help up lap up.

She took her last breath last evening around 6pm after having been unconscious for a little over a day. I spoke with her on the phone before she slipped from us...so many things I wanted to say! But she was the one who spoke, blessing my new marriage and speaking vision over my life. My mom said she kept telling everyone she wanted to go out peacefully...maintaining her 'witness'. she didn't want to whine or struggle..she wanted to experience the thing she had so long believed to be true by faith- that letting go of one world and being embraced by another...to transition from this life into forever without fear. she did just that.

i feel so extremely honored and blessed to born into the legacy of that great soul...to be cut from that bolt of cloth...to be able to say "Clydella Holzbauer"- the little girl abandoned by her namesake and yet redeemed and restored in the arms of Jesus- was my grandmother.