It hit me like a ton of bricks this morning, when I opened up the paper and saw an obituary for a woman I loved.

Altheia Dudley passed on Saturday. I usual don't do obituaries, only because its an extremely time consuming process, and so far, there's only one of me doing this work.

But Altheia was a woman for whom to ignore her "homecoming" would be a travesty.

She was my Sunday school teacher at First Baptist Church of Roulette. I was going into fifth grade. All of us fifth grade boys were petrified. We had heard stories of the "mean old lady" that taught the class.

I'll never forget sitting in her class, afraid to move, afraid to laugh at the flannelgraph conflagration, with Mary Magdalene's head slightly dog-eared.

But it did not take more than one week for us boys to realize that she was strict, but she loved us.

I'll never forget her playing the piano, or singing with all her heart.

She made those "stuffy old hymns" come alive, because when she sang them, she meant them.


When I grew up, and went off to college, she'd slip me a 20 dollar bill when she would shake my hand (she did it more than once) and tell me that I was a good boy, and she wanted me to put it toward school.

She loved Jesus.

and she loved me.

So when I heard last year that her health was failing, and she was placed in the long term care unit, my heart broke.

Someone that beautiful should never have to suffer.

And so today, when I hear that she went "home" this weekend, it warms my heart to think of her sitting in the lap of the God that she loved, and taught me, and a hundred other fifth grade Roulette boys to love.