Kirby Pines Retirement Community | The Pinecone

The Pinecone | June 2026 • 9 • After I retired, I promised myself I would become a volunteer since I had not had the time earlier. I began to volunteer at Brinkley Heights, a mission in North Memphis. Folks in need could come in for food and clothing and to hear God’s word. I worked in the clothing room. Clothing was donated in boxes and bags. Often it was left on the doorsteps. We volunteers checked for suitable clothing (clean and not stained or torn). Then we sized it and hung it by sizes. When my mother died, I donated her things to Brinkley Heights. At least five years after her death, I was working one day and just happened to pick up a cardboard box of garments. As I pulled them out, one caught my eye. It looked familiar. It looked like the dark blue fleece sweater I had ordered for my mother. It had valentines pouring from a mailbox. The valentines had the names of her grandchildren on them. But it couldn’t be Mom’s! It had been years since I donated that sweater. I looked more carefully and there on the inside label were her initials MEP. I held it up and started telling the other workers what I had found. Everybody started telling me to take it home. God wanted me to have it. I did take it home. I wear it frequently. I feel like she’s near me when I wear it. It was a God thing that in five years, nobody had taken it or thrown it out. TOPIC OF THEMONTH: Write something about your Mom. Poetry &Writing Club COME JOIN THE CLUB Monday, June 8th at 9:30 am in the LCR A GOD THING Story by Marilyn McCormick MarilynMcCormick SydneyWagner I had good parents ~ My Daddy was the one you dreaded hearing my Mother say, “just wait ’til your Daddy gets home, young lady” but he rarely whipped us but when the infraction called for it, he would strip off his belt and usually he would whip all three of us, with each of us claiming, “it was not my fault” but he assured us that we’d probably needed it for a past act of poor judgment. But Mother on the other hand, should I forget and sass her, she was quite likely to pop me right across the source of my stupidity ( my mouth ). I remember one day we went out together to gather the eggs and I was always thankful when she’d go with me because even then I was short and could not see over into the nesting boxes where the hens laid, and I knew snakes also liked eggs and I had a horror of putting my hand in to get the egg and have a snake not want me to take his meal. After gathering and on the way back to the house, with Mother walking forward and me in front of her but walking backwards and laughing and enjoying our time together, I tossed the egg I had in my hand to her and she tossed it back to me, telling me at the time, “do not do that again”. I pushed my luck and did it again, with the same warning, but sassy and hard headed, I decided to toss it again and then I turned my back on her and continued walking ~ now bear in mind that my mother was a star basketball and softball player in high school and at that precise moment, she tossed the egg back to me in her softball pitcher fashion and landed it right in the middle of my head and left me stunned and wanting to cry with contents of a broken egg, the yellow and white covering my head and running onto my clothes and I heard her exclaim as I ran out of sight, “I told you not to do that again.” And I NEVER DID. AND I NEVER DID IT AGAIN Story by Sydney Wagner Mom’s Found Sweater