missed events of buddy don: miz bds wurds at a funeral

as i menchunned last mundy, one of miz bds furst cusins passed away last sundy. miz bd wuz able to make it to the funeral, whar she wuz ast to say a few wurds after the preacher had sed his few. i wuz later tole by everbidy how i wooda been proud of miz bd, as ifn i wudnt alreddy bout to burst with pride at havin her (the bestn) in my life.

miz bds mama wuz kind a nuff to type up them wurds, witch that makes it possibull fer me to share em with ye. ifn ye dint dun alreddy know bout why i am so proud of havin the luv of my life fer my wife, ye kin git ye a lil idee here:

Linda
1948-2007

The word “Linda” means “beautiful” in Spanish. That was the perfect name for our Linda, because she WAS beautiful.

Yes, she knew all the various ways to fluff up hair and highlight eyes and add a little color to cheeks and lips. She knew how to add the decorations, too, right down to the practical aspects of piercing ears with a sewing needle and an ice cube. What she didn't know was that she didn't really need any enhancements: she was just plain beautiful. But Linda was not the first name I knew her by. To me, her adoring younger cousin, she was half of PatsynLinda. It took me quite awhile to think of Patsy and Linda as separate people, partly because it seemed like they were always together. PatsynLinda helped me learn to read. PatsynLinda taught me to dance along with the latest 45 rpm records.

It was always a holiday when PatsynLinda came to visit. And getting to visit them was an exotic vacation. On one visit, when I was in junior high school, I got to go to school with Linda for a day. She was in high school then, planning to go on to college and a career. But life had other plans for Linda. After she finished high school, she became a mother, so on my next visit she taught me how to take care of a baby.

Lee was still just a toddler when Linda went to work in a factory. I got to babysit him now and then, and I remember Linda coming home from work with machine oil under her fingernails. She might not have believed it, but her hands were still beautiful even then.

One day she came home unusually happy. She'd met this wonderful guy named Bill, and he'd asked her out. Bill was able to look right past Linda's factory-worker hands and see how beautiful she was.

Bill tells me it snowed the day they met, so what you see on the ground out there is just Linda's way of saying goodbye.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

Bill and Linda got married and brought even more beauty into the world: Lee's lovely sister Belina, who looks so much like her mother.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, another generation came along, and now Bill and Linda have three beautiful grandchildren.

Science tells us that the actual physical material that makes up our bodies is completely replaced every few months, so what makes us what we are, and who we are, is not the physical but the spiritual, a pattern of energy.

Linda's physical body won't be with us anymore, but her energy remains.

I will remember Linda every time I sing along with an old rock-n-roll song on the radio, every time I put on makeup or try to fix my hair. I will remember her whenever I do something good for my health. I will remember her when I think of one of our favorite places: the old swimming hole at Potter's Falls in Tennessee. I will remember all the things, and all the ways she taught me about the beauty of this world.

Thank you, Linda.

And on behalf of Linda's family, I thank all of you for being here to honor her today.

With love,
[miz duncan]
February 8, 2007

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