What is Mother?

12:30 PM Greeting by Reverend Byron Miller

12:35 PM Psalm 121 by Rev Miller

12:40 PM Lord's Prayer by Assembled in Unison

12:45 PM Eulogy for Mom by Patrick Darnell

12:50 PM Reflections -- by Hunter Paniagua
-- by David Darnell
-- by Bernadine Foster

1:00 PM Sermonette by Rev Miller

1:10 PM Closing Prayer

In Loving Memory

Jerre Jean Hynds Darnell

Born

December 3, 1926

Entered into rest

April 19, 2013

Houston, Texas

Celebration of Life Services

The Chapel of SouthPark Funeral Home

12:30 PM

April 24, 2013

Officiating 

Reverend Byron Miller

* * * 

A Eulogy for Mom

Some of you know Jerre Jean Hynds Darnell as your coworker. Others know her as your party planner. Some know her as their dance partner. The board of Directors knew her as that fastidious worker. You might have caught her style as she walked the runway at the Country Place style show. Maybe you see her in her yard. You might see her praying with her church circle. Many know her as your top secret confidante. Many, many know her as that ravishing beauty. I don't often use the word ravishing, but in Mom's case she is.

But you see, Jerre Jean Hynds Darnell is my Mother!

She bore me, she named me with her heart of hearts husband, and she raised me.

My brother and sisters know of what I speak.

Most important to me is that Mom always speaks the truth. Jerre Darnell always tells the truth. That is her way. The truth isn't always the most popular thing we want to hear. Sometimes when she said those truths, it would make me want to run and hide. And she always stuck to her guns. If you fidgeted, she tells you to sit tight. If you tried to pull her away from her important task, she tells you to hold your horses.

When conversations become nonsensical, Mom relies on her maternal wisdom. Her truth statements have become pearls in her children's, grandchildren's, and great-grandchildren's lives. Mom's wisdom, you see, comes back to her.

Mom and her steadfast friend, Robert, are blessed with long lives, 67 years of which they have been husband and wife.

What is Mother --
what is Mother,
without her house
and her child?

Her babies are born
and grown in her domicile

Many houses
Mom has known
Many seeds she has sown,

Where she settled
she made it her own.

As years gathered numbers
some ideals are put to rest
her children, now with children,
are wiser, never alone, at best,
for Mother journeys with us ...

See all their bright little faces
Hear their falsetto voices,
... full of trust, truth, and whim,
Creating such a din.

Thank you all for coming.

Funeral Surreal ?!

Protest at a Funeral: isn't that bit ... Queer?
by Pat Darnell

Today, October 6, 2010, we are asked, as a people, to make up our minds about freedom of speech, as it will be arbitrated by our Supreme Judge arbiters. Blimey!! Not again: you say. We hear you.

Well, yes, it is another era of protesting -- sometimes called 'Civil Disobedience' -- and it is being done by some folks this time who are of the Baptist persuasion. Let's see if MooPig Tale of the Tape Department can sort this out a bit.

Weighing in on the one hand is the father of a slain Marine, who wanted to peacefully lay his son's body to rest as is the custom in the United States. His name is Albert Snyder and his son is " ...his only son, Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder, who died in Iraq’s Anbar Province in 2006."

Mr Snyder has tested the First Amendment of the US Constitution, and sued the protesters for $10.9 million and won. But his favorable judgment was over turned  in an appeal at the "federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia."

"... [V]erdict against the pastor, Fred W. Phelps Sr., and his church, for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which required proof of outrageous conduct, and for invasion of privacy. But a federal appeals court overturned the verdict on First Amendment grounds.

On the other end of this argument is the ... " ... lawyer on the other side, Margie J. Phelps, [who] said the First Amendment protected the protest, where seven pickets at some distance from the [Snyders'] funeral carried signs with messages like “Thank God for dead soldiers” and “God hates you.”

Here is an interesting fact pointed out by the NYTimes: " ... Ms. Phelps is a daughter of the pastor of the church, Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. Her argument alternated between smooth exposition of First Amendment doctrine and support for the church’s message. [SOURCE] ..."

"We want to give the rancorous protesting Baptist Minister some street credit for having his daughter grow up to be a lawyer and to be able to represent him in the Supreme Court," said Mel B. Toast, MooPig's Tale of the Tape Editor.

From the ensuing think tank of MooPig's Tale of the Tape iron man round table this is the bullet check list that has evolved:

• What happened in that other small church Koran burning thingy?
• Protesting at a funeral seems like a moot point; I mean the guy is dead, after all 
• Who was supposed to go get the sandwiches at Mo's on Ohio St?
• [Suddenly, a lot of coins were passed amongst our think tank guys and gals as they settled up on their fantasy football clutches ...]
• Eventually, someone brought up: " ...Abigail Phelps, another of Mr. Phelps’s daughters, carried a sign that said “America is doomed.”
• a fight broke out when Slim Jim quoted the plaintiff's lawyer: "Mr. Summers said private grief raised different issues. ... "
• “Why aren’t the members of the families of the deceased a captive audience at the funeral?” Alito asked.
• Everyone looked dumbfounded as they pondered: "Who the devil is Alito?"

As the afternoon melted away into the cool of the evening, we heard many of the old standards being tossed about. Hustler versus Reverend Jerry Falwell was one of the token case comparisons, but that is moot too.

"Reverend Jerry Falwell, was a Christian evangelical fundamentalist Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative ... died of natural causes in 2007. Eh?" said Dean Rucker, resident Brahman Priest at MooPig Enterprises. "I cannot see where that old case has anything to add, since the Reverend is passed on after a long rewarding life: unlike our Marine who was killed in a war in the prime of his youth. Seems rather poor taste, and kind of queer."

Then we heard some snapple crackle popping " ...as the Supreme Court grappled with the limits of the Constitution’s free-speech guarantee, debating whether it protects protesters who go to military funerals to proclaim that God is punishing the country by killing soldiers.; ..." Then we got some real poop on the defendants:

Fred W. Phelps Sr., is the head of the 70-member Westboro Baptist Church, a congregation made up mostly of his relatives. Phelps and his followers have traveled to hundreds of military funerals to proclaim that God is angry over the country’s acceptance of homosexuality, bearing signs that say, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” “Pope in hell,” “God Hates the USA” and “Fag troops.” [SOURCE]

Tale of the Tape

SNYDER VS PHELPS Supreme Court Case # 09-751

SNYDER: Among those backing Snyder are 42 U.S. senators, led by Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

PHELPS: The American Civil Liberties Union and 21 news organizations including Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, are urging rejection of the award.

PHELPS: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press including The New York Times Company, filed a brief supporting the Kansas church. It said the First Amendment protects even hateful speech on matters of public concern.

SNYDER: -- [Snyder's reward was reduced and then overturned on appeal, with a decision upholding the Westboro group's right to free speech. Additionally, a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge last week ordered Snyder to pay $16,510.80 of the Westboro Baptist Church's almost $100,000 in legal fees.] --

Bill O'Reilly  |  April\2006  | "I will pay Mr. Snyder's obligation. I'm not going to let this injustice stand," O'Reilly said Wednesday on his show, "The O'Reilly Factor." "It's obvious those cranks at Westboro were intentionally trying to hurt Mr. Snyder and his family."

So, with Bill O'Reilly in your corner, Mr Snyder, take our unfettered congratulations before you even enter the ring. MooPig has a good feeling that this case will end in your favor. Thank you very musssh!

Part TWO: Burdens of being Clever as a Brick

How I became so Pragmatic
by Pat Darnell

I heard rumors all my young life. My Grandfather whom we called "Old Pop," Lloyd Orion Hynds, was in the final stages of life, giving up the ghost, to cancer. That was in 1979, and to my recollection Old Pop was always a bit rotund, and dogmatic. He had many professions, and many mannerisms that puzzled his family and friends. He was an enigma to his own children, but he let some of his grandchildren into his methods and moods. It was natural for me to go to be with Old Mom when Old Pop died. I had been chosen the day after my birth, I suppose, by my Mom since she named me Patrick Hynds Darnell.

As grandson, when I had stood next to Old Pop, I felt a change in atmosphere. He always wore clean, pressed, smooth white, lapel shirts, with a soft tank-top tee-shirt under. He tucked those into his clean black pants, held in place with black belt. He had a large nose that held up his trifocals, and a bald head. I learned later he just didn't like hair, so he shaved his head. Otherwise he would have had a full white bonnet of hair like his "Hynds" relatives I would meet in his wake.

As I stood by his coffin to view my Old Pop, I turned to Auntie Fran Hynds and said, "Wow, when Old Pop gives up the ghost, he really gives up the ghost." Fran got it, and gave me the twinkly smile she should have patented when she was alive.

He had lost so much weight, I was a bit stunned to see him so thin lying here, in state. But I knew the condition of his body was now an empty vessel. Old Pop had put his affairs together much earlier.

You see, Old Pop had become a fisher of men at age fifty. He preached a rural route on Sunday mornings, at three Methodist churches. Old Mom held fellowship in her own Hynds Circle, a women's Methodist group that today is still going strong. And now in 1979 he had prepared to pass on to his next stage of life. That is when I learned more about much, while being around my cousins and second cousins, at Old Pop's funeral.

Old Pop and Old Mom had lasted through rural farming existence, urban living, very hard financial times, and now Old Pop had returned to his roots.

Old Pop and my grandmother, "Old Mom," lived in lots of places. Hyndsver was their home. Hyndsver, a Burroughs of Martin, Tennessee, is the location of the original Hynds family farm. It also remains the site of oldest family cemetery, although still farmed by owners, they are no longer named Hynds. But there remain plenty of Hynds around town.

Hafford Hynds sat next to me in the kitchen, talking with me at the funeral home. He was my second cousin, only he was thirty years my senior as it turns out. He had panache like Old Pop did. However I could never pinpoint the family trait that kept popping up in my new found Hynds relatives.

So later I had a chance to sit with Old Mom. I talked about how much I enjoyed meeting all my Hynds "distant" relatives, like Hafford. Old Mom is so quiet and deliberate that I always know that what she says to me will be a humdinger of a thing. A thing to not forget: a remembrance. She didn't let me down this time:

"Those Hynds boys, they are so clever," said Old Mom. It was my affirmation. My mom handed me her maiden name, so that I am Patrick Hynds Darnell. Since a name is supernaturally important to me growing up, ... I had to know the Hynds trait as it pertained to my own preamble and someday eulogy of life. Says Old Mom, so say we all: "We of the Hynds and affiliated clans have a clever gene."

________________________References
Please See: Also
(Carol, Mary : Weakley County Coordinator. © 2001-2009 by MaryCarol Weakley County [SOURCE]: This is truly a Tennessee Volunteer web site, many kind Weakley County Cousins have volunteered materials and time over the years to make it what it is today. You will find LOTS of old photos.)[HERE]