My wife, Donna, died on July 16, 2022. This is her eulogy, which I delivered at her memorial service at Trinity Baptist Church in Raleigh.
There was nothing pretentious about Donna Joy Hyland Stith.
We lived in the same house, near Knightdale, for more than 50 years because she was not interested in Movin’ on Up. She was not interested in beautiful clothes, or expensive jewelry or fine restaurants either, with one exception – she did enjoy celebratory meals at the Angus Barn.
She was not proud, although, even Donna had her limits.
Some years ago I bought a state government car at auction. For $1,775, which is what that car cost, I didn’t get a used cherry red convertible. No sir. I got a plain, white car shaped like a cigar box.
Donna and I were in agreement that she would drive the best car we owned and, at the time, that ugly thing was the best car we owned.
Donna didn’t like that car.
I think it was just too plain, even for her. So when our son, Mark, offered to cut a hole in the top and install a sun roof he bought from a junk yard, Donna was all for it.
And then she drove the wheels off that ugly little government car.
Donna was what might be kindly called a “collector.”
She collected teapots, close to 200, maybe more, and anything related to a tea party.
But, like her daddy, Jack Hyland, a legendary pack rat, she also collected stuff.
Years ago Brother Dave helped me –or, maybe, truth be told, I helped him– build what amounts to a warehouse in our back yard – a 12×20 foot shed with windows and a porch – and with shelves that held 352 cardboard boxes a foot wide, a foot deep and almost two feet long.
It didn’t take long however, a few years, before Donna had filled every one of those 352 boxes with her treasures. And then she filled the aisles. And then, finally, I could hardly open the door.
I told Donna, I said, “Donna, listen to me carefully. There is no more room in the shed. You need to throw some stuff away.”
“No,” she said. “You need to build me another shed.”
Donna loved the beach. She didn’t want to live there, but it was her favorite place to visit.
Years ago, back when you could buy a beach front house for, say, $300,000 or so, Donna and I went shopping. We couldn’t afford to pay anywhere near that much but I thought, maybe, we could buy something two or three rows back.
Donna, however, would rather have had a shack on the ocean front than a mansion anywhere else so she kept looking for something that we might be able to afford.
One afternoon, when she returned from a house hunting trip, she told me she had found a beach front house she wanted me to see.
“How much do they want for it?” I asked.
“$100,000,” she said.
“How far is it from the water, Donna.”
And she replied, “At high tide or low tide?”
Donna and I fell in love when we were high school seniors and pledged ourselves to each other on Christmas Eve, 1959. We were 17 years old. She was what was known in those days as a “catch” – smart, pretty, a cheerleader who was voted Best All Around in our class. She graduated and went to college at the University of South Carolina. I graduated and went to boot camp, and then to sea aboard USS Los Angeles.
Donna did not graduate from USC. After her freshman year, she decided to enroll at Kings Business College and learn stenography, a skill she could use to help earn our living when I got out of the Navy and went to college.
Before we were married, in 1963, she worked as a stenographer for the FBI in Charlotte, and then later, as a secretary in the School of Nursing in Chapel Hill, until our first born arrived.
Later on she was a substitute elementary school teacher, where she told me she learned not to smile before noon – smiling emboldens the little devils.
They were always probing for weakness, even the second graders, one of whom asked her: “Are you a real teacher?
Donna did her part to build up our community.
She was a Cub Scout den mother. She was president of the Wake County Extension Homemakers. She was a docent at the Governor’s Mansion. She was a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) mentor. She helped preserve the house and outbuildings at Historic Oak View County Park and served for many years on its board. They put her name on a plaque out there honoring people who had made a difference at Oak View.
But her main job was mothering.
She changed diapers – are you listening – she changed diapers for 20 years. With no breaks. Two for Bo; two more for Mark and Jack, our twins; and then 16 more for Jack, who is mentally handicapped.
Donna loved all three of our sons, but she devoted herself to Jack, the son who was least able to demonstrate his love, a son who never called her by name, not “mother,” not “Donna,” not anything. But, to Donna, that made not one whit of difference.
Jack moved to a group home when he was 20, but Donna entertained him most Saturday and Sunday afternoons for 35 years. She would take him out for pizza or ice cream and then bring him home so he could watch movies. Some, like “Home Alone” “Mrs. Doubtfire” “The Sound of Music,” his three favorites, he watched over and over.
Jack did provide her with good stories from time to time.
He had been down at the community pool watching television on a small, portable TV when Donna scooped him up and headed to the Sears store in Raleigh to return some paint.
She allowed Jack to carry his TV into the store, sort of like a Mom who lets her child hang on to a special blanket.
Donna found someone who could tell her where to return the paint, just a few steps away and, for a few seconds, she turned her back on Jack. When she turned back to get him she saw a commotion, a knot of people gathered around the spot where she had left him.
They looked confused — dumbfounded, actually.
Jack had unplugged the cash register, plugged in his TV, and was watching “The Price is Right.”
* * *
Donna made friends easily and kept them, too—like the Ya-Ya Sisters, Sally Bierce, Pat Godwin, and Susie Hinnant – with whom she laughed and sometimes cried for 50 years, and Jimmy and Peggy Taylor, and their daughter, Mary Darlington, who cared for Donna night and day for 10 days, when she came home from the hospital to die.
The last few years of our life together I began saying to Donna, “You’re my Little Baby.”
And she would reply, “You’re mine!”
Donna began fading away this spring, gradually becoming more and more confused.
Toward the end of her life, when she had stopped eating and could barely speak, a nurse at Wake Med asked her, “What year is it?”
Donna did not answer. Her face was completely blank.
“Do you know where you are?
Again, Donna did not, perhaps could not, answer.
And then the nurse asked, “What is your name?”
And Donna replied, “Little Baby.”
Donna was a Christian and this is her testimony:
“We were married in 1963 and moved to Chapel Hill, where Pat studied journalism at UNC. I worked at the School of Nursing. We had our first son, Bo, a year later. Two years later our twin sons, Mark and Jack, were born. Pat graduated and we moved to Charlotte when the twins were 5 days old.
“Life for me was very hard. We knew something was wrong with Jack, but didn’t get a diagnosis for 18 months.”
“Once more, I sought a deeper relationship with God. But it wasn’t until I was expecting our fourth child, a child the doctors said would face a one in four chance of also being mentally handicapped, that I came to the end of myself. Bo was 4, the twins were 2. I lost that baby in the sixth month and suffered a terrible depression. I went to a minister for counseling and he introduced me to who I call “Jesus in the kitchen.”
“I handed God complete control of my life because I couldn’t handle it myself. Then I realized Jesus could be my best friend and be with me every moment–for help and comfort, and advice in time of need–great need. My life changed then, and it has never been the same. I’ve had times when I did not feel His presence, but I always know He is there.”
“The Bible became a personal love letter from God to me. I loved studying it and understood it more and more.”
“I joined a weekly Bible study and prayed all during the day. I learned that if I lacked wisdom in raising our three sons…I had only to ask God and He would give it to me. Life was still hard, but no longer overwhelming.”
Donna never spoke to me of her legacy, but she has one. It is not built on prizes and awards. It is not built on prestigious titles or high paying jobs.
What she achieved is infinitely more valuable.
Donna was a most excellent wife and mother who kept her eyes on the cross. She loved Jesus and taught our sons to loved Him. They, in turn, married strong women who also loved Jesus, and, together, our sons and their wives built Christian homes.
Proverbs 32:28 could have been written about Donna: “Her children arise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her.”
Donna would want you to meet her family and you’re going to, right now.
This is Donna Stith’s legacy.
[And then our family made music and sang. How I wish Donna could have been there. She would have love it so!]