Oh Miss Betty Lou Who

I want to introduce you to Betty Lou-Who. Well her real name is Betty, but ever since I watched Jim Carrey’s “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas” I can’t help but add the Lou-Who to Betty’s name. Betty is an elderly woman in her 80’s who has the personality of Eeyore from the children’s book Winnie the Pooh. For the past 35 years, Mama Morton (my host) has graciously given of her time to help Betty out with everyday tasks, such as doing her laundry, and driving her to the grocery store. Since I am living with Mama Morton I have started helping out with these weekly visits, and they provide me with great entertainment.

To start, every sentence that Betty says ends with a negative comment. For instance, today on our drive to the church to plan her funeral for the umpteenth time Betty says “It is too bad those nice flowers are in bloom, they will be dead any day.” She also is constantly “sick” and convinced she is dying. She runs to the doctor the moment she senses that something might be wrong. Today while halfway through eating an ice cream cone she informed us that every time she eats one she starts to cough exactly halfway through. The first time it happened she rushed to the doctor, and he advised her it was just because she was eating something cold. She is sure it is going to kill her though.

She also has a strange obsession with planning, and re-planning her funeral (Mama Morton says she has everyone’s lines memorized from typing out the bulletin and order of service a million times). Due to the fact that she thinks she is going to die every other minute she obsesses over every little detail of her funeral. For instance, she now wants a trumpeter, but she insists Mama Morton arranges a rehearsal so she can make sure it sounds good with the saxophone player. She recently decided that she wants to add an organ to her musical ensemble; however, the latest church that she picked for the funeral doesn’t have one. This of course has resulted in her contemplating changing her venues again. The one positive thing that came out of today’s visit to the church is that the chairs were a nice rose colour, which she feels is very important because she can’t have anyone sitting on chairs that are an ugly colour. Even though Mama Morton tells her she won’t see any of this, she insists on re-planning each detail. After dropping her off and arriving home tonight, she called us to say she isn’t feeling well so Mama Morton needs to put together a list of all the people she needs to call when she dies. This list has been revised and completed about 100 times already.

Betty also has a boyfriend named Vincent. How he puts up with her constant sorrow and “sickness” I will never know. She claims he’s going deaf, I think he just doesn’t want to hear her talking about the latest depressing thing that has taken place.

I am sure in the coming weeks I will have more amusing stories to share from my visits with Betty Lou-Who. It is amazing the types of people you meet when ministering to others.