Our minister's wife, Mrs. Andrews, laughs with the angels

As Women’s History Month winds down, I’ve been thinking about, and thankful for, the women in my life.

My mom comes to mind, of course. Alice Pincus, my peer one year older, does, too, as do the Wythe Girls whom I admired and with whom I grew up.

Teachers and professors like Joan Deppa shaped me. Lena Clausell did her part nurturing me (brusquely) through the candidacy process at seminary.

Ginny Barksdale, a sage, influenced my early years as a pastor, as did saints like AnnieLaura Jaggers, Gladys Sachse, and Page Phillips.

These women mean nothing to you, but everything to me.

The can-do, kindly women with whom I’ve served in churches have brought joy and inspiration. The women at my home church in Hampton, Virginia — people like Harriet Chappel, Shelia Hardwick, and Jackie Soule — rise like sequoias.

But nobody stands taller than Dot Andrews.

Her husband, Louie, was the minister of Community Presbyterian. I admired him. If he walked on water, Dot floated on air.

Talking with her made us kids in the church youth group feel important. She asked questions, was interested in us, and she listened. Dot brought us joy.

She was quick to smile. Sometimes she laughed hard, waving her hand like she was swatting at a sugar fly. She was mostly composed and steady, but I’ve seen her cut a sideways glance at my mom from across the room and the two of them — well into their dignified sixties and old enough to know better — would giggle.

I’m sure she wasn’t always serene on the inside, but she was on the outside. Most of the time she seemed delighted, contented, curious, and sometimes — and this was wonderful — mischievous.

For us kids, she and her husband were always there. Steadily present. Proximate, attentive, available.

One year when I was in the church youth Christmas play, she cross-stitched all of us teenaged-actors small Christmas ornaments. Because my mother sewed, I knew her gift took planning and many hours to make. Even as a kid I was impressed.

She could have made cupcakes or gotten us something plastic in bulk from the dime store. We would have been just as glad then.

But we would not have rediscovered her gift every subsequent Christmas from the trunk of ornaments under the stairs in our basement, unwrapped the tissue paper, and held it lightly in our hands remembering our friends in that tight group so freckled and young, the play we did (Martin the Cobbler), and Mrs. Andrews’ smile when we sat in a circle on the floor at her house at the cast party when she said we worked so hard, and the play was so delightful, and she loved us so much. She exuded love that still inspires me.

Mrs. Andrews loved us. We loved her back.

Every year, time stops when I find that little Christmas ornament. I remember those kids from 45 years ago, forever young, and I remember her.

It’s all so fragile, so yellowed with age, so beautiful, so holy. Those smiles in that circle — hers particularly — still bear sacred light.

It’s all gone so soon.

Or, eternal.