A Birthday Blessing
It’s August 11, 2017.
It is a rainy Friday evening as guests arrive early for what is to be a surprise event at Clyde’s Restaurant in Ashburn, Virginia. The guests filter into the restaurant and begin to fill the rows of long tables in the private reserved dining room. Finally, Cookie arrives bringing her mom Dorothy, the guest of honor.
Dorothy is surprised as she enters the room and takes her place at the head of the table.
Her seemingly ageless face has a big smile and guests take advantage of the photo opportunities.
Dorothy Lockett looks beautiful and classy as always.
Today is Dorothy Lockett’s 94th birthday.
She is known to many as Mother, Mother Lockett, and Momma, all truly terms of endearment for one incredibly special person.
Before the meal, with the guests now settled into their seats at the tables, a blessing is offered by one of the guests:
“Our father we thank you so much for this opportunity to gather tonight to celebrate a woman who has lived life well.
Thank you oh God for what you have done in the life of Dorothy Lockett yesterday,
Thank you for where you have her today.
Thank you oh God for where you are taking her.
Thank you for the deposits of love that you have made in her life, that she has been so willing and so bountifully willing to share with so many of us.
Those of us that she has adopted into her family as she has shared her motherly love and wisdom, and council and discipline with.
God, we give you thanks for this life.
God, we thank you for Cookie and all the grandkids, thank you oh God for their willingness to share their mother with so many of us.
And now oh God, even in this season of life, we pray oh God that you would continue to pour a sense of purpose into Mother’s life.
That you would continue to keep her body.
That you would strengthen her spirit.
That you would provide her continually with opportunities to continue to minister.
God, we thank you for this woman of God.
We pray oh God, that you would bless this food, that you bless it for the health of our bodies.
And even as we celebrate oh God, we pray that you would allow our conversations and celebration to honor You.
Thank you for Dorothy Lockett.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen”
Amen.
That Blessing was delivered four years ago by a guest at Dorothy’s 94th birthday. Unfortunately I don’t know the name of the man who authored that prayer.
This day, August 11, 2021, we celebrate Dorothy Lockett’s 98th birthday.
To my family Dorothy has always been “Momma.”
She has celebrated many Christmas Eves with Kim and I and our kids and family and friends.
She has sat at the “family” table at one of our weddings.
She even made the trip to western Pennsylvania to attend Kim’s mom’s 80th birthday party.
And though in the more recent years we haven’t been able to have those times to share together, we know we are all still family.
Dorothy was born on this day in the year 1923 in Meridian, Mississippi.
One Christmas Eve, after everyone had either gone home or gone to sleep, Dorothy told Kim and I the story of how she met James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman, the three young Civil Rights workers who would end up murdered not far from Meridian, while working at the Star Theater. The Star Theatre was an African American only theater.
One day the three young men, who worked for COFO, the Council of Federated Organizations and had an office close by, came to the box office window where Dorothy was working. Since the theater was black attendance only and Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were both white from up north, Dorothy didn’t know what to do.
So she called her manager and explained there were two white boys and a black out front and they wanted to come to see a movie and what should she do?
Her manager, who was white, said “let them in Dorothy.”
And so, after that, on days when they didn’t go out in the field to help register blacks to vote, the three young COFO volunteers would come to the movies at Dorothy’s Star Theatre.
On June 21, 1964, members of the Klu Klux Klan assassinated Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman. The Klansmen shot them and buried their bodies in a dam. They weren’t found for two months.
Dorothy would work at the Star Theatre for twenty-six years. Her experience with managing the theatre’s deposits landed her a position as a bank teller at the Farmers and Merchant Bank where she worked until she retired and moved up to Northern Virginia to live with Cookie.
Dorothy also claims to have been the first African-American crossing guard in Meridian and I don’t doubt she was.
Dorothy’s story of the theatre and the young civil rights workers is only one example of the experiences that Dorothy had growing up, living, and working in Mississippi that shaped her life and gave her the gifts that the rest of us now benefit from. With wisdom and grace, and her strong faith in God, she rose above the hatred and exemplified love.
“Those of us that she has adopted into her family as she has shared her motherly love and wisdom, and council and discipline with.”
Dorothy’s son Doug once described his mom as “one of God’s ambassadors for mankind,” and “because of her, our family doesn’t see color.”
My family, for one, has been truly blessed to have had the opportunity to get to know one of God’s ambassadors.
That’s the gift given to us on this day of celebration.
God, we thank you for this woman of God…
Thank you for Dorothy Lockett.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen”
Yes, in Jesus’ name, we thank you.
A blessing.
Amen.
Happy Birthday Momma!
We love you more!
Postscript:
The photo above is from Christmas Eve 2012. From the left, that is Hayley, Alexa, Savannah, Kim, Kim’s sister Kate, and Momma.
And if anyone reads this and knows the name of the author of that prayer please email me.
