As new-born baby, he helped save mother’s life
“They tell me I was born in 1942. That makes me 78 years old. The night I was born, there was a storm. My dad drove to Liberty County, to Dayton, Texas, to get the midwife. But he didn’t make it back in time. Somehow, my mother delivered me all by herself. I was born, and she was critically ill. Later, the doctor told her that if it had not been for the baby licking on her face, she probably wouldn’t have made it. The baby was looking for some milk. That sucking sensation, that’s what kept my mother going, what saved her. I loved my mother dearly, especially after she told me what the doctor said to her. That was amazing to me, to think that I helped save my mother’s life.
“The day she died, I thought I helped save her again. Everybody was saying, ‘Connect her, connect her.’ I said, ‘No, no.’ She didn’t want to be connected to any apparatuses. So we went to the little chapel to pray. While we were praying, the doctor knocked on the door and said, ‘You don’t need to pray much longer. Your mother has passed away. She’s with the lord now.’ That was a relief to me because I didn’t want to see her connected to a life-support situation. She didn’t want that. I saved her from that.”
— Sherman Gray Jr.
Sherman is the long-time pastor at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church of McNair. His mother was Etta Pearl Gray.
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