On the day of Candlemas in 1935 Dorothy Hilda Watson
was born in Dagenham England, a town east of London near the docks that would
be so heavily bombed during the second world war. By 1940 her father had left to serve his
country in an artillery unit in the famous British Eighth Army. Dot was briefly evacuated to the country
where she attended church at a small country chapel. She heard a hymn there
that she adored. She did not remain evacuated
very long, returning home where she had the experience of nearly being collateral
damage from the many German bombing raids aimed at the Dagenham docks. One day there was a direct hit on a
neighbor’s bomb shelter killing a little girl.
Sadly this was an experience not unique to Dot during this war as well
as many others.
Nearly 6 years after he had left, her father returned
home having survived the battles in North Africa, Sicily and Italy. Among Dot’s possessions are letters her
father sent to her mother from El-Alamein, Sicily and Anzio. (I think these “letters” were actually post
cards.) After the war her father grew a
beautiful rose garden and Dot clearly inherited his green thumb. There had been many tailors on her mother’s
side of the family and she clearly inherited from them the ability to excel at
handicrafts such as sewing, embroidery and knitting as well as painting. (We
still have at least one flowerpot in the garage painted by her.) I don’t know
from whom she inherited her great love of animals, especially dogs. It seems to me that she rescued half of the
stray dogs and cats in Tuscaloosa County.
(That is how we ended up with two dogs, Betsy and Strawberry.)
On July 31, 1954 Dot married Derek Sidney Lax and
their first child Christine, who much later became my wife, was born 18 months
later. Christine was followed in turn by
Janet and then Robert.
I first met Dot a few weeks before my wedding to
Christine. After our first child was
born we periodically began to receive parcels containing sweaters and blankets
that Dot had knitted for her grandchildren.
One day I remarked to my wife’s Aunt Muriel that I could not understand
why Dot did this. It must be a lot of boring work. Muriel’s reply was an emphatic, “No, James,
it’s a labor of love!” And indeed it was.
When my wife became a US citizen, Dorothy asked her
to sponsor her immigration to the United States. Since the parents of a US citizen can more or
less automatically get a green card, Dorothy and Derek left England in August
1989, leaving behind two grandchildren
to join two others, and third about to be born in Northport AL. Once she was here, she learned of an upcoming
immigration lottery and entered her daughter Janet (along with husband John
Chambers), as well as her son Robert.
Since you could enter the lottery as many times as you wish, she did so
many times, and that is how the rest of Dot’s immediate family came to
immigrate to Tuscaloosa. The year 1998
brought Dorothy a sixth grandchild, Hayley, who quickly became the apple of her
eye.
Dorothy worked at Home Health Care of North Alabama,
DCH Home Health Care, then Hydra Tools, and finally she worked for her
daughter, Christine, at the Babytalk Store until she became too ill to continue
working.
As Dorothy’s cancer progressed, so did her pain and
suffering. I took her to see a
specialist at the Kirklin Clinic several times and she received treatment last
November and December at the Cancer Treatment Center at DCH. Finally in early May we learned that there
was nothing that could be done that had any reasonable chance of working. Dorothy decided to be admitted to hospice and
only receive palliative care.
Oddly enough, this is when I really began to
appreciate what I think is the most important thing about her. As Saint Peter
told the readers of his first epistle, “before all things have a constant mutual charity among yourselves: for
charity covereth a multitude of sins.” As Dorothy suffered, I recalled the many
little labors of love (or charity) that she had shown toward her children and
grandchildren over the years. She had
never been too tired to make a batch of Yorkshire puddings for Christmas or
Thanksgiving or both. She brought a
large batch of Yorkshire puddings to our 2012 Christmas dinner, even though she
had been extremely ill from her treatments and could not stay very long. Dot was quick to adopt the American holiday
of Thanksgiving because it was another occasion for the entire family to be
together.
I marveled at how she accepted her suffering without
complaint. The only thing she asked was
that Derek never leave her side, and he practically never did. Several times
the nurses at Hospice told us that they were worried that she did not ask for
pain medicine often enough. I kept
wondering whether Dorothy was allowing her suffering to have meaning by uniting
it with the Passion of Christ. She
certainly was exhibiting the sort of heroic virtue typical of many famous saints. Throughout her ordeal she always seemed to be
at peace and was grateful for even the smallest act of kindness.
Two days ago my daughter Sarah reminded me that
Dorothy had had a dream during the spring shortly before we learned her
treatments had failed. She dreamed that
she was back in the country chapel that she had attended during the war while
evacuated from Dagenham. She remembered the hymn that she had loved so much and
then Christ appeared to her in this dream and told her not to worry, He would
take care of her. As Dorothy was nearing
the end of this life, she must have been trusting that Christ would take care
of her. I hope that I can have that same
trust.
