Kim Wilbanks

Making a Plan For Summer

I had a plan, a very good plan. 

Back in May, I listened to my good friend Christa Hutchins’s Do a New Thing Podcast on planning for a summer break. Christa launched a new business a few years ago that specializes in helping Christian women who are writers, speakers, and involved in ministry. She described how she was going to take time off in the summer, unplug from social media, and focus on enjoying her family.

My husband and I were looking forward to spending two weeks in Iceland with our son, daughter-in-law, and baby grandson. I liked Christa’s idea of pausing for the summer, especially concerning my blog. In the midst of packing and preparing for our trip, the thought of preparing content and scheduling it on my blog was stressing me out. And I knew I would not have time (or internet service) to work on it in Iceland.

So, I put my blog on pause for the month of June. The plan was to begin again the first week of July with a patriotic piece inspired by an earlier trip to Williamsburg, Virginia with a friend. I had a plan and it was going to work out great.

Then June 25 happened.

A Plan Interrupted

My husband and I were walking along the waterfront in Reykjavik, Iceland on a Sunday morning near the end of my trip when I got a text message from my mom. She had been in the hospital for some tests the previous week. She told me that her doctor was releasing her from the hospital into hospice care. Even though my mom had not been in the best of health for several years, this still came as a shock.

We flew home two days later, arriving at my mom’s house just a couple of hours after she did. My daughter and brother were there along with the caregiver we had arranged for the week before our trip. That was the beginning of five long, difficult weeks — the hardest I had yet to experience in my life.

My mom passed peacefully on July 30, a Sunday afternoon, my daughter, my brother, and me by her side.

A Different Plan

Our family is scattered across three states and the gentleman my mother wanted to officiate in a fourth so it was difficult to find a time when we could all be present for her celebration of life. That service ended up being on September 23. My daughter and I both spoke at her service. It was a memorable gathering of neighbors, friends, and family.

I tried to write during mom’s five weeks in hospice but I couldn’t. It was one day at a time — actually one hour at a time. I think I was on autopilot from June 25 to September 23. My head knew that I needed to write and that the longer I put it off, the harder it would be to start back but my heart just wasn’t in it. My dear friend offered a suggestion just a few days ago. She suggested that I share what I said at my mom’s celebration of life service. It was already prepared and my readers might enjoy a glimpse of my mom.

So that is what I’m going to do. In the weeks and months ahead, as I navigate this new phase in life, I would like to explore this unexpected (but inevitable) part of life in the empty nest. In the meantime, please enjoy these words from a daughter simply trying to honor her mother.

Eulogy From My Mother’s Celebration Of Life Service On September 30

Good morning. I’m Kim, Ann’s daughter and oldest child. On behalf of our family, I would like to welcome you and thank you for being here as we celebrate the life of a truly remarkable woman. I would also like to thank you for all of the calls, texts, cards, flowers, food, and kind expressions posted on social media during her time in hospice and at her death. We felt your prayers and good wishes.

It’s appropriate that we are having this service on a Saturday in September. Mom would have turned 88 years old ten days ago. She was born on Friday, September 13th – she never considered Friday the 13th unlucky. Neither did we.  She rarely celebrated her birthday on one day, but instead, she celebrated the entire month. That was just her way.

Mom was many things. She was a daughter, sister, cousin, niece, mother, grandmother (or Mom-Mom), and finally a great-grandmother. She was a nurse, college instructor, business owner and philanthropist. She was a golfer, a world traveler, a seamstress of costumes, an entertainer, a party organizer, and a supervisor. She was a friend.

Some of the words I would use to describe my mom are strong, independent, stubborn, bossy, opinionated, impulsive, demanding, impatient, loud, extroverted, over-the-top, frustrating, intimidating, sometimes unreasonable, and occasionally exasperating.

If you knew my mom well, you know I’m not lying, yet, in spite of that, we could not help but love her. I was thinking about that and I came up with four main reasons why we were so endeared to her. She was eternally optimistic, she was fiercely loyal, she was extravagantly generous and she was simply just a lot of fun.

Eternally Optimistic

Mom was eternally optimistic. She was the Tigger to Dad’s Eyeore. She rarely allowed herself to be sick or to feel bad. When we would get news of some health issue she was having, she would slip it into the conversation right after saying, “Oh, by the way.” I still remember finding out about one of her cancers a few years ago. It went something like this; “Hey, by the way, I got my test results back from the doctor and my cancer has spread but that’s ok, they caught it early and everything’s going to be fine. Oh, and Pam and Beth are coming next week so we’ll all have dinner at the house so you and Jim come over.”  She would also wait to share this information when she knew you wouldn’t be around to fuss over her; like right before you were leaving on a trip. My brother Andy and I used to joke that we would find out about her death when we got an invitation to the funeral.

Being a nurse, she had a lot of confidence in the medication she was taking to keep her cancer at bay. She talked about new studies and new drugs being developed to help people with cancer. She never gave up hope.

Jim and I were in Iceland with our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson, and Andy and Kristie were in Colorado when we got a text from Mom on Sunday, June 25. She had been in the hospital for about a week for some tests. Early that morning, her doctor came by and told her that she was being discharged from the hospital to hospice care. (Evidently, there was nothing more to be done to keep her cancer at bay) She assured us that she was fine, she was happy. She had lived a good life and was going to a better place. It was almost like she was planning her next get-together. 

Over the next five weeks, she often told her visitors “I’m good, I’m happy”.  I knew we were in trouble about three weeks in when, as she was trying to get comfortable she made the comment “I am NOT happy.”

But whatever happened; an illness, a disappointment, any sort of conflict, she and my grandmother both lived by the paraphrase of Romans 8:28 – “Everything works out for the best.”

Fiercely Loyal

Mom was fiercely loyal to family, friends, and even institutions. There was no neighborhood in Lakeland better than Lone Palm and why in the world would people think otherwise? Lone Palm also had the best restaurant in Lakeland and she supported that by eating there at least three nights a week. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. We are grateful she didn’t have to leave the neighborhood to get a good meal. If she needed a gift for someone, a baby gift, birthday present, anniversary gift, or Christmas present, it was going to come from Marshall Jewelers – incidentally, where she registered for her wedding china and crystal back in 1959. For her apparel – Babe’s at Southgate. And we all know where she bought her groceries. Publix was so ingrained in us that I still feel guilty going into any other grocery store, even if it’s in another state or country where a Publix grocery store does not exist. The last weekend in July was blocked off for the Blanton Family Reunion. If you didn’t have a good excuse, like dying, you should absolutely plan on being in Cairo, GA that weekend. One of her caregivers told me that Mom had asked her to accompany her to the reunion this summer. But, that was not to be. Mom passed on the day everyone was heading home from the reunion. My grandfather had died on that same day back in 1984. She was also loyal to Florida Southern College, urging any high school senior to consider applying. Her latest focus was Bonnet Springs Park. She took friends and family members on dozens of field trips over the years as the park developed. A funny story. George and his wife Iris came to visit Mom in mid-July. She was especially tired that day so we visited back in her room. After talking to George for a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep, or so we thought. George, Iris, and I were talking quietly and I asked them what they were going to do the rest of their time in Florida. He told me a few ideas then we heard Mom whisper “Bonnet Springs.” They ended up going twice! 

Friendship was vitally important to Mom. She told my daughter and my friend Trish that she hated to lose a friend and that she would do anything in her power to restore a friendship and we saw that happen. She had a core group of friends that she spent a lot of time with, playing cards, sharing meals, going to plays, going on field trips, and celebrating everyone’s birthdays. There were also many trips to the mountains or to the beach. Many of these friends go all the way back to her school days and some of her dearest friends also happened to be family.

Extravagantly Generous

Mom was extravagantly generous. She was generous to her friends and family but she was also generous to the community. I believe she inherited that trait from her father. If you drive around Lakeland, you may see the evidence of her generosity. The Lakeland Campus of Florida Baptist Children’s Home/One More Child is named after her father. The Joe and Alberta Blanton Family Village on the campus of the Salvation Army’s George W. Jenkins Community of Hope is named after her parents and she was a major donor to the Joe K. and Alberta Blanton School of Nursing and the Ann Blanton Edwards School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Florida Southern College. If you take a stroll through Bonnet Springs Park, you’ll find the Blanton Lagoon and the Ann and Ward Edwards Boathouse.

A few months ago, Jeff Cox from the Salvation Army came by and presented Mom with a commemorative bell in appreciation of her generosity. When she first came home from the hospital, she would use that bell to alert her caregivers that she needed them. It was much louder than the Salvation Army bells you hear at Christmas. We eventually had to find a smaller bell that she could lift.

She was generous to her friends and to her family. She was known to pay medical or dental bills where there was a need or help with transportation or home repairs. If you went out to eat with her or shopped with her, she would pick up the tab. She even kept a condominium in North Carolina long after she built her mountain cabin just so she could offer it to friends and family or to an organization for a silent auction. 

We would all receive anniversary gifts based on the tradition of the particular year. And at Christmas, the girls always got jewelry and scarves while the guys got shirts from Lone Palm. She loved to give. We learned to be careful saying we liked something if we happened to be out with her because she would buy it. A few years ago I had to beg her to stop giving Katelyn and me Madame Alexander dolls. Jay has enough Alabama Crimson Tide paraphernalia to host a block party and my nephew, Drew, has a small suitcase full of bowties from his bowtie phase.

Simply A Lot Of Fun

Finally, she was just a lot of fun. She loved gatherings. I remember growing up that just about every Friday night, friends of my parents came over to play cards or Yatzee. 

A trip to the beach wasn’t just sitting by the pool or out on the sand. We made sand candles and shell creatures. We took long walks on the beach. We dug for clams or caught crabs and cooked them. 

She was always in the middle of planning fun things for the kids in the neighborhood like going tubing down the Ichetucknee or visiting Walt Disney World. Once, when we spent the summer on Crooked Lake, she piled a bunch of us kids into the station wagon and drove out to the middle of nowhere Polk County to see the ghost lights of the headless man. Brave woman.

She relished her role as a grandmother (or Grandmom or Mom Mom, depending on which grandchild you were talking to). When Jay was about three years old, she got us seasonal passes to Walt Disney World. We made many, many visits to the Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, Animal Kingdom, and Disney Studios. First, with Jay and Katelyn then with Drew and finally with “the little girls”.  It wasn’t unusual for her and my dad to travel to Niceville to watch Cecelia and Sophia while Andy and Kristie went on vacation.

She loved costumes. As evidenced by many photographs, she coerced Dad into her fun from early in their marriage until just a few years ago. She made all of mine and Andy’s costumes as well as our kid’s costumes. I think Katelyn was her favorite muse because she would sew just about anything for Katelyn. She was usually a bit over the top with her costumes. If a hat was in order, it would be a big hat with a costume, possibly a group costume included. If any of you have attended the Campfire Kentucky Derby Party, you’ll know what I mean. She spent a good part of the year planning and creating (with the help of her sidekick Missy) our famous family Christmas photo.

She loved to travel. As children, we went on family trips with extended family or just the four of us. We continued the tradition once the grandchildren came. She traveled with friends, her golfing buddies, my dad, and with other couples. She even took several trips around the U.S. with my elderly grandmother and her sisters. She went on golf trips, ski trips, and cruises. She visited at least 25 other countries in her travels. 

One of her favorite places was Banner Elk, North Carolina. She and my dad purchased a place in nearby Sugar Mountain when my brother decided to attend Appalachian State University. When he bought a house, they decided to build a log cabin on his property.  They continued to visit Banner Elk several times a year until the summer of 2020.

And who else do you know who could turn a simple meal on a Wednesday or Thursday night into a celebration? Every. Single. Week.

I could go on and on about my mom. There are so many memories. But it would take hours and I don’t want to bore you.

Final Thoughts

For as long as I’ve had a dog, I have walked to my mom and dad’s house several mornings a week. I would usually sit down and have a cup of coffee with them and chat about whatever was going on that particular week.

After Dad died last summer, Mom seemed a little more introspective in our conversations. Perhaps it was a way of evaluating her life. Perhaps she sensed that her time was coming sooner than later. I won’t tell you what we talked about because she wouldn’t like that. She was very private and held her feelings close. But, we had some good talks. I know that some of you here also had some good conversations with Mom.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible is 1 Corinthians 2:9 

But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”

I don’t know what happened when my mom took her last breath. We can only imagine from the little glimpses we are given in scripture. But I would like to think it went something like this. When my mom finally went to sleep, as she so desperately wanted to do, she woke up to see my dad patiently waiting for her. I picture him smiling and saying “You’re finally here, I’ve been waiting.” Next, with her mother, and other family and friends nearby, I imagine my grandfather, her father approaching her and enveloping her in an embrace she had been waiting a lifetime to experience. After that, with an arm draped around her shoulder, I imagine her father saying “Come on Ann, there’s someone I want you to meet”. And all of the sickness, hurt and pain was over.

I really miss my Mom. We all do. She has left us with a rather large void. I’m not sure how to fill it or if it even can be filled. Perhaps we can start by following her example; by being eternally optimistic, by being fiercely loyal to those we love, by being extravagantly generous, and by having fun in this life we have been given.