Helen M. Jones, Maiden name Weaver

My mother, Helen Jones, died last January 16th at Downey Regional Medical Center from old age and failing health. My mother had been bedridden and wheelchair bound for a number of years. She went into the hospital on New Year's Eve 2011 and died of heart failure during kidney treatment two weekS later at the age of eighty-five years. My mother was born Helen Mae Weaver, the daughter of William Walter Weaver and Alma Mae Weaver, maiden name Bennet, on the 26 of August year of 1926 at her parent's home in Poplar Bluff, Butler County, Missouri. My mother married my father, John Dulin Jones, of Richmond, Virginia and an airman veteran of World War II, in Santa Barbara, California, April 22, 1946. He died fifteen years ago on Veteran's Day 1998 in the same hospital. There was a bedside service in the hospital room shortly after she died. The hospital Chaplain, Steven Mitchell said a prayer for her. Two of my mother's caregivers, Celia Santana and Josefa Gutierrez, also were at her bedside.Even though my mother didn't stand on speeches and customs, I feel that there should be some acknowledgement for someone's life like my mother's than just the vital statistics. For she was an uncommon common person. I wanted to write about how my mother thought and lived her life, which is the real point. And the same story is true about my father. I didn't write anything down about my father after he died, and I wanted to say something now to set things straight. My mother, and my father, loved me very much and took good care of me because I was born very badly crippled, and I loved them very much, and miss them both something awful. It's hard to think of them without feeling very sad, and so much more hard to write about without the feeling of being unable to write. My parents were my best and greatest of teachers who taught me more by how they lived than by what they said. My greatest reward was to be born the son of two such good people, and my greatest regret is that I have not always lived up to what they taught me. They were good people, plain and simple. They world was always a better place to me because they were in it. The world will be a little darker, a little colder, a little emptier without their light and warmth in it, without them. I'd feel this way about my parents even if they were someone else's parents. They would still be the same people and I would still feel the same way. Over the years, I got to know them not just as parents but as human beings. For now, I wanted to let anyone who reads this notice who may have known my mother or who remembers her to know she died. And for anyone who did know her and remembers her, a lot of words or anything I could write would not be needed. Someone told me that in five minutes anyone would know that kind of person my mother was. My mother even told me that it didn't really matter what anyone said about her after she was dead, because she wouldn't be there. She told me what her grandmother told her, "Don't put flowers on my grave and say that you loved me after I'm dead. Give me flowers and tell me that you love me while I live" My mother believed that a person lives as long as those who remember that person live and pass on the memory of that person to others. And in that sense, my mother lives in me and in the hearts of others. And that's why I have written this memorial to her. If anyone wants to call or write or come by, my name and address and telephone number are: Phillip Dulin Jones, 8527 Lubec Street in Downey, California 90240. 562/381-2201. If anyone wants to send a gift of flowers, please send azaleas or tropical lilies with ferns to help finish a very small memorial garden I started a year ago, or a small gift of money to buy some living, potted flowering plants. If anyone, wants to send a gift of money for a charity, please make any gift out to atrarescue.com, with Abandoned Terrier Rescue Association at 818/347-1029, which helps with rescue, care and placement and adoption of fox terriers and like terrier breeds which my family used to have. Small gifts of money may also be sent to the Friends of Ferndell Foundation, which is bringing back and taking care of historic park an Griffiths Park, where my family used to go for group and family picnics. Thank you, Sincerely Phillip Dulin Jones. I meant to write about my mother's death much sooner. I had a very hard time settling the estate which did not lend itself to honoring the memory of a loved one. My apologies. I have felt very privileged and honored to have know both of them and I told them so.

********** Published: June 20, 2013 - Volume 12 - Issue 10