Serving (Letty: Part 3)

The Lord graciously took my dear mother-in-law, Letty Hueni, to Himself on April 23rd after a long battle with Alzheimer’s and the effects of several strokes. Bed-ridden for her last five years, she was wonderfully cared for by Dad and the surrounding family. She never left home. I thought I would post some thoughts about mom over the next few days…

You didn’t have to be around Mom for long to notice that she had a servant’s heart.

We lived in a small cottage not far from Lake Ontario as newlyweds. It was rather idyllic, but to afford this acre lot surrounded by millionaire neighbours, I had negotiated with my landlord to care for the lawn. “Lawn” may be an overstatement. “Forest” may be more accurate.

I am trying to recall now how many bags it was… 15, 25, 40? I think it was close to 40. Mom and Dad had come up to visit us in our new digs and while I was off trying to sell Russian cars in Canada’s wealthiest neighbourhood, they were raking.

For two days they raked and raked and gathered up somewhere around 40 bags of leaves. It took me a while to drive them all to the end of the lane for pick up.

I was amazed to think they would do that. It was a huge service to us as we got settled into our life together. And that would become a signature of my in-laws. Mom seemed to love to serve. She would even sneak off and do our laundry sometimes when we were down to visit!

And she was consistent. If you were sitting down, you were offered food and drink. If you were working at something, you were offered help. And obviously, it wasn’t just us. I watched Mom serve church members, neighbours, family and even strangers.

What floors me now is that I cannot remember a single time she expressed the slightest level of annoyance at having to serve. Rather, it seemed like it was her joy. In some very deep places the Gospel of Jesus Christ had taken root and borne good fruit in her life.