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Our family had gathered at our father's house in Montreat, North Carolina, responding to the word that Mother had been taken off life support. For weeks, Mother had clung to life. She seemed torn between wanting to remain here, with Daddy and the rest of the family, and wanting to be with Jesus. We all felt her struggle.

As her time to go home drew near, we gathered around her bed, singing and praying and reading Scripture. Daddy had excused himself for a brief rest. But as Mother's breathing became shallower, he returned to her side. She gazed in his direction, took two breaths, and entered into the presence of Jesus. Our tears that had been held in check for weeks flowed freely. Our sorrow and grief was, and still is, great.

But I couldn't help reflecting at that very moment that the only person my mother would leave my Daddy for … was Jesus. If I could have seen the other side of the pearly gates when Mother entered, I have no doubt that I would have seen that celestial moment as my daughter Rachel-Ruth helped me to visualize it: millions of angels standing to applaud Jesus, giving him all the glory and praise for the life and the legacy of Ruth Bell Graham.

I have been asked what I will miss most about my mother. The answer is simple: Everything! My memories of Mother are many and varied.

Her sparkling eyes. If they were truly windows into her soul, they revealed someone who relished life. She was full of fun, opinions, and a zest for living that was evident until her last breath.

Her arms outstretched. Even her gestures conveyed the warmth of her welcome and her unconditional love, which she generously extended to each family member, and to an expansive circle of friends—sinners and saints alike.

Her quips and quotes, such as:

"Anne, make the most of all that comes, and the least of all that goes."

"A good marriage is made up of two good forgivers."

"The most important quality in a husband is simple kindness."

"Every cat knows some things need to be covered."

"It takes two to fight."

"God called you not to make your husband good, but to make him happy."

"You can't teach your children to like spinach if every time they see you eating yours, you gag."

"You don't have to like worms to go fishing," (speaking of the music used to draw young people into my father's evangelistic meetings)

Her whimsical enjoyment of the ridiculous. Small stuffed hedgehogs that peeked out of the knots in the beams of the dining room (and were left in place even when the President of the United States came for lunch); an assortment of stuffed mice that lived between the railings of the steps going upstairs from her bedroom; little wooden mice that she pinned over a tear in her denim skirt to convey the impression that they had eaten a hole in the fabric; a sign, with large bones stacked below it, positioned beside the driveway to our home that said, "Trespassers will be eaten"; an old tree stump that still had the remaining stub of a branch, which she painted to look like the face of some old hag with no teeth.

While my vault of memories is full and causes me even now to smile through my tears, my mother's real legacy in my life runs very deep … and wide. Two things stand out above everything else. The first is that Mother was in love with Jesus—and that love was contagious. She wasn't caught up in religion or traditions or rituals or even a denomination, although she was staunchly Presbyterian and very proud of it. She was caught up in a personal relationship with Jesus. While it was a relationship that was very intimate and passionate, it was not rooted in her emotions or in her experiences; it was rooted in the truth of God's Word and in prayer, which is the second primary aspect of the legacy she left to me.

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August (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51