{"id":3976,"date":"2006-12-13T23:05:29","date_gmt":"2006-12-13T23:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/sad-sad.html"},"modified":"2006-12-13T23:05:29","modified_gmt":"2006-12-13T23:05:29","slug":"sad-sad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/12\/sad-sad.html","title":{"rendered":"Sad, sad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Graham’s sons in conflict about their parents’ graves. <\/a><\/p>\n

Franklin wants them buried as the last stop on the tour of a memorial library that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is building in Charlotte. A tour that begins with a greeting from an animatronic cow. <\/p>\n

Ruth Graham, bedridden and very weak, but apparently still fairly lucid, adamantly wants to be buried in a place she created near Asheville – the "Cove" – a retreat spot for workers in evangelism and missions. She most adamantly, it seems, does not want to be buried in Charlotte. Their son Ned is her advocate in the matter. <\/p>\n

And that leaves Billy Graham to make the decision – a very melancholy situation.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Billy Graham sits next to Ruth’s hospital bed for long periods, stroking her arms and her face.<\/p>\n

Ned knows that his father hates conflict, which is one reason his dad has stayed away in recent years from the political battles of religious conservatives. But this is one dispute Billy Graham can’t avoid.<\/p>\n

As Cornwell ends her short speech to Billy that November evening, Billy says, "I sure appreciate what you say, and I have no comment. I’ve heard all this before."<\/p>\n

Cornwell is not dissuaded.<\/p>\n

"I tell you, if you’re buried there I’ll dig you up and move you here," she says.<\/p>\n

Ruth chuckles from her bed. "I’ll be one of the pallbearers," she says.<\/p>\n

At the sound of Ruth’s voice, Billy’s face softens toward Cornwell, as he says, "I’ll just think and pray about what you’ve said."<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Graham’s sons in conflict about their parents’ graves. Franklin wants them buried as the last stop on the tour of a memorial library that the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association is building in Charlotte. A tour that begins with a greeting from an animatronic cow. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}