Maggie 6
Maggie Mariah McCranie Kimmons
page 6
"Different" can mean unique, unusual, outstanding, you know.
It was my finest hour
Maria McDonald Ryals [12 Oct 1856 - 14 Sep 1938]
Big Bill 17 Jun 1889-31 May 1961
Hubert Jefferson Evans [16 Nov -1929]
Yes. Maggie was "different." With her own human handicaps [I do not speak of spiritual handicaps] she was able to do with children what millions and millions of contemporary Americans are unable to do today: to raise them correctly, to provide love, humanity, warmth and Christian guidance. The crime rate, gangs, drugs, etc., as you well know, are the fruits of poor parenting, of awful parenting [for me this is no mystery at all!]
And so it was my friends, that in due time and with ample age, I came to understand with a new profundity the meaning of the New Testament passage where it cautions us that we may sometimes entertain ANGELS UNAWARE. That means that we may be eating with someone or working along side someone who is an angel. Someone who looks just like a human being; that person may even look rather down-and-out [like Jesus looked]. Someone who may have the appearance of Clay but, in fact, is Gold.
How do we know what God will do when he wants to secretly send an angel "unaware" to be among us? Angels are messengers, you know. They have something to tell someone. No doubt, there are many who still remember the personal message Maggie gave them. Her "messages" were not words alone [talk is cheap], but acts of altruism too. She comforted someone. She fed someone. She hugged tightly her children. She called or visited a desperate soul. She lent a kind hand to sick bodies. Her life "spoke a message."
I think God sent Maggie to do two or three little ministries, that's right two or three little ministries. The ones I mentioned above. I personally don't think God sends angels to correct or work with great collectivities such as Iran or Iraq or the Mafia. Instead, He sends angels secretly, often in humble, unrecognized forms like Maggie. Little clay dolls plowing mules, sewing dresses, or working in orange groves.
That's why we don't spot them. That's why we are unaware of who they are. To make this point, look at the example of Jesus who was, of course, not an angel, yet was so simple, so poor, so unimportant in social standing [so clay-like] that the crowds did not see him for what he was; He was "unawares" for most of them who said, "Oh, We know who you are. You're just the son of Mary and Joseph" [translation: "You're nobody in particular"].
OAK HILL: A happy ending
At the tail end of her assignment in this world, Maggie spent the last days of her life in a little house on a hill in 'Cranie Lane.
Mama was never happy living in Eastman, but when we moved to the Lane she came alive! She never looked back at Eastman, nor did she ever ask to come back to look at the property or even ask any questions as to its condition. She was at home and was as happy as I ever remember seeing her.
Mama lived eight years after we moved back to the Lane. She had her grandchildren right next door although many others she loved seldom came to see her. She had her own little world with her grandchildren and her brother, John K.
At that time she had finished tending to her children and to the others who had come to her. Mr. Kimmons had died and Maggie was quite alone. Not surprisingly, it was her children who protected her as merciless Time imposed a painful aging process for the old fading angel. The Gold was still Gold but its luster diminished as death slipped icy fingers around her failing body.
At the same time, to my own sorrow, many of us, yea most of us did not visit the solitary McCranie-Kimmons woman dwindling away on the hill . . . Mariah: Uncle Jim - Aunt Carrie's little girl. God's clay angel.
But Maggie, I'll bet that the One who "spoke the universe into existence called out your name in a personal way!!" I'll bet that when the gold and purple twilight appeared on the horizon of your life, you had an inner strength and resource invisible to all other eyes. In your sweet breast the butterflies of love sat down for the long rest. Behind your compassionate eyes glorious rainbows dimmed for the last time. Your assignment, your journey among us was well done, good and faithful servant. Pack up, now. It's time to return to the Father.
When death finally came and made quiet this little soul, the family asked me to preach her funeral and I did. It was my finest hour, not as a preacher, but as one privileged and permitted to say the words of goodbye to Jim and Carrie's girl, to God's simple angel. Oh, Maggie Kimmons just to hold your old hand one more time . . . . We long to hear your voice one more time.
As I write these pages, I think to myself how I would prefer to spend some time this Christmas Eve with Maggie than with President Clinton. You easily see the spiritual difference, don't you?
Finally, I am ready to say that we, the family, might be wise to wonder what God may have done for us through John K. McCranie,
John
Kingsbury McCranie
Maggie's brother, the only living son of Jim and Carrie in 1998. I have never met anyone who did not love John K. With all my education, travel, and extensive experiences of diverse cultures, places and people, I am sorry to say that I cannot say the same thing for myself. Plainly put, John K. is lovable.
Many of John K's cousins and nephews take time with him. Why? Hmmmm. In a pleasant way, we feel good around John K. In November 1997, I sat with my arm around his neck at John B. and Erlene's anniversary celebration because I love him just as many others do. Maybe "Kay" is another gift of God to us in this crappy high-tech world of raging crime and insanity.
John K., like Maggie did, has lived alone now for many years in the old Mariah-Andrew Jackson-Big Bill house. Kay has been alone since Big Bill died in 1961. This old McCranie gentleman is our connection to the old people we loved and the old days and old ways that are virtually "gone with the wind."
Thanks to Hubert Jefferson Evans, son of Johnnie Blanche "Sis" McCranie for the genealogical data and for processing almost all the fotos. His archive of fotos and data on our family history is unparalleled by anyone anywhere.
Thanks to Jim Kimmons, son of Maggie, whose love for his mother inspired me greatly in the writing of this little story. Jim also provided many fotos and typed up his memories of his mother.
Thanks to Larry and Carol K. Chkoreff for the many fotos they sent. Carol emailed me sweet memories of her mom and dad as well.
Maggie's sister, Betty M. Myers, provided memories over the phone and by written mail.
Return to Kimmons Family Home Page
Page last updated on 01/31/98
by the Sitemaster, Abbie Donald Evans