Verona Euritta Henry Smith

Verona Euritta Henry Smith, 6/23/1939 to 11/07/2009, known to many as Miss Smith, the tough math teacher. Known to me simply as Mammy.

My mother loved flowers. For many years, she was exclusively a rose person. I remember when I was in high school, at one point she had around 100 rose bushes. Then she started rooting new ones by the dozen.

Over the years, her focus shifted from roses to carnations to orchids. I decided to give her a surprise. I told her that I would take her somewhere but would not tell her where. After a 4-hour drive, she found out that I had taken her to an orchid farm. Acres and acres of orchids. She was like a child in a toy store.

It was interesting to watch her pack the orchids in her suitcase. But then she was no stranger to packing unusual objects in her suitcase. One year, there was the marble table top. Another year, there was the chain saw.

I last saw my mother in September 2007 before I set off on my travels. She was the first person to know of my plans to go traveling. And she said that if she were younger, she would have gone with me. I had hoped that next year she could join me for a couple weeks to experience some of the adventure.

I knew when I left, that there was the possibility that someone in the family, maybe me, that someone could pass away before I return. But when I spoke with my mother last Wednesday, just three days before...

Many of her orchids had died. And she talked about going back to the orchid farm to buy replacements. She had just fixed the leaking tank that had caused the cistern to run dry...

We didn't know we were having our last conversation. I wish I had told her I love her. I wish I had said the words “I love you” many more times in the last 37 years.

Last Saturday night, I was at a friend's home in Istanbul, Turkey. At the time, I was unaware of the news. My friend wanted to hear me play my flute. Of all the songs I could have played, I played:

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long way from home
A long way from home

The next day, I discovered how true that was. I miss her already.

My mother was a strong woman. In 1989, just a few weeks after we lost my father, my mother and I survived Hurricane Hugo, huddled under a table while the roof of the house was blown off. But she didn't just survive. She prospered – for 20 more years!

She often quoted Psalm 90:10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. She was 70.