Like many of us, I last saw Tammy Faye on clips from the Larry King interview she had done recently. And I thought of my own mom, her struggle with cancer, and her passing- all too soon for us.
That Tammy Faye has left us is no great surprise; she had been battling illness for some time. That she was, in the latter years of her life, the subject of ridicule and vehement scorn over a very public collapse of the work it took many years to build may seem for some poetic justice. For me, it just proves she was human.
That she was willing to subject herself to the public's scrutiny, and criticism about matters over which she had little control, made her something more. She was brave; a brave human being and a brave Christian.
See, she was a public Christian at a time when Christians were enjoying a sort of 'golden moment' in time; the 'I Found It' movement had happened and the PTL club was mainstream enough to welcome guests from all walks of life. It really was a cultural phenomenon of the time.
Tammy Faye lived up to the role of minister's wife, then the global televangelist's wife; she committed herself to her role wholeheartedly, and I cannot imagine anyone doing a better job of it. But as she satisfied her role, she never really 'played up' to it; she was natural (in that she was true to herself) and even self-effacing. I think that when there is so public a fall, society expects the fallen to just go away. And somehow this very public person has to figure out how to put together the pieces of their life and go on. Tammy Faye did. I admire that.
I have a memory to pass along; I remember reading about the early years of Jim and Tammy Bakker. I read that they found a collection of doll heads that was on bottles of shampoo being sold at clearance. That was their start; a puppet ministry. I don't think a couple who starts out in a puppet ministry tells themselves as they go to sleep at night, "that's ok- someday I'll hit the big time". They were a product of, and perhaps a victim of, the phenomenon of their day.
Tammy Faye, I will miss you. I am saddened that you are no longer on this earth. You remind me of a day when my faith was very new to me. You remind me of a day when my family was coming apart at the seams in the wake of my brother's passing, and how Christ came in and bridged that gap for us. You were not perfect, but you were honest- what we saw was real.
Now it's up to those of us who remember you to be honest in our lives and faith about who we are. I can't imagine a more fitting tribute.
