Contributions to the tribute of Roy Lee Greene

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Gerson posted a condolence

I should meet her. That I'd rellay like her. At first sight, I wasn't absolutely sure Mrs. Reninger was right. Yeah, maybe that's a bogus thing to admit. I'm aware that when speaking of someone in Joy's state, we're sort of expected to proclaim their virtues and swear by an instant liking and admiration in retrospect. But I'm honest, and in honesty, I thought her a bit odd upon our first meeting. I had approached her, introduced myself and mentioned how Mrs. Reninger thought we should meet. Oh, ok, she had said, then a lull which stretched to become an awkward uninterrupted silence and ceased when contact was broken and each returned to previous occupations.Odd, I thought as I casually observed her later, the way her body would jerk and bow and swing, with her arms outstretched, head held back and eyes tightly shut, not quite in time with the beats and the swells of praise music reverberating all around us. No, not in time with what I heard, but rather drawn from an inner soundtrack to which only Joy was privy. Odd, I thought. Hmm, Mrs. Reninger, I'm not sure about that one. Little did I know she would become one of my most treasured friends, revealed to me to be one of if not the most remarkable young woman I have ever met and I suspect, ever will.Though the liking wasn't instantaneous, a friendship emerged and then blossomed as I came to know and love Ms. Bausum. We spent a brief time together in during the summer of 2007 when she was attending Advanced Training and I was in between expeditions at Overland (OM) Rapid 14 base near Livingstone, Zambia. We reconnected once again in New York while attending OM's Northeast Conference the following October. By the time she committed a year to OM and headed down to Florida the following year, I had a bonafide friend. And what a friend she was.When I moved the office I kept for Dr. Leon van Rooyen into the back office of OM where Joy, Stephen Ogburn and David Killough also worked, Joy was relieved. Finally, another girl to help her wrangle the boys as she always called them. You see, the boys liked to get a rise out Joy, and if you've ever met her and spent not even a considerable amount of time with her, you would understand why. Say something slightly off-color or engage in any type of impropriety, and the show was on. I can still see her, tossing her head back dramatically, throwing her hands in the air and exclaiming the offender's name with mix of incredulity, reproach, and pure amusement, a twinkle in her eye and slight curl of the lips giving away the latter. Of course, I helped her wrangle them from time to time and came to her defense on more than one occasion, but the rascal in me couldn't help but drop a few faux-pas's of my own just to see her slack-jawed and watch her pony tail swing. Those were good times.Birthdays were special to her, as anyone who's ever celebrated one which Joy Bausum was aware of could tell you. On or around the anniversary of your birth, you could expect a special delivery from Joy. A little envelope, sometimes new, sometimes obviously recycled. And inside that envelope was a rudimentary card, often cut out by hand, adorned with stickers or hand-drawn hearts or any combination of the above and more, and accompanied with a heartfelt wish of the happiest of birthdays written in Joy's signature scrawl. Stamped on the back with a special stamp made just for her were the words, Handmade with love from Joy. She made Christmas cards too. She sent one to my sister and me last Christmas. Just one, for the both of us. I, being the fiercely independent person that I am, was slightly miffed that we didn't get separate cards. Well, it's not like I'm married to my sister. We're individuals, I had said. Who gets to keep the card? And of course, with me being the honest sort, I told her so. Sweet Joy. She told me she had thought about that, but money was so tight she couldn't afford the postage to send one to everyone and had to combine some, but assured me that I'd get my own for my birthday. Sweet, sweet Joy. Send us joint Christmas cards, please. I'd be overjoyed to receive one. The things we think of in retrospect, the regrets that remain without rectification If the birthday cards indicated anything, it was this indisputable fact. Behind Jesus, people and relationships were the top priority in Joy's life, and it was because of her love for the former that she endeavored to devote her life to the latter. I remember when Joy got word that a little girl had been in a horrific tractor accident which left her maimed and fighting for her life. You know what Joy did. Joy organized prayer support for the little girl. And rest assured, when Joy said she was praying for you, she was PRAYING for you. Not any of this, Oh I'll pray for you but what I rellay mean is that I don't know what to say or what to do to comfort you, so I'll let myself off the emotional hook by uttering a half-meant promise that I may or may not keep. No, Joy prayed. With fervency unmatched. And in true Joy style, she even recruited the youth group at Destiny to make, you guessed it, handmade Get Well cards for the little girl. Just one example of many too numerous to mention. I'm not convinced that she saw it, but if she did or could, Joy would be tickled beyond pink to see her Facebook wall now. I'm thinking a shade of deep, gasping-for-breath-purple kind of tickled. Yes, we rellay do love you Joy, just as you loved us.Love, Relationships The air in her lungs and heartbeat in her chest. Messages, texts, phone calls and visits, often not reciprocated. Joy did it anyway. She was a bulldog when it came to relationships- she grabbed on and never let go. Bulldog Bausum. That's why I know May 16, 2010 was written by God and meant for her, and for my sister and for me.When Joy moved back to South Carolina, and my sister and I back to Louisiana, I wasn't sure when I'd see her again, but I was sure that I would. Then we received word that Joy had finally snagged the opportunity of her lifetime- to serve as a full-time in Asia. Her dream. She was leaving in just a few months for a two year commitment in Malaysia and Bangladesh. Time was short and I thought had to resign myself to see her when she returned. She wouldn't return. But see her, I would It's a sunny Sunday afternoon in Bricktown along the canal in Oklahoma City. The date is May 16, 2010. I'm sitting on a bench outside of a red-bricked Marble Slab Creamery that melds into other restaurants in a line and ends in a Tinsletown Cineplex. I'm enjoying a generous portion of of my favorite ice cream cake batter flavored. It's running down my hand. My sister Jennifer, a.k.a. Jiffy, sits beside me. We're in Oklahoma City at Jiffy's behest. She discovered that the Biggest Loser was taping portions of its first episode of Season 10 in various cities across the country and she felt led to attend, and one to never turn down a road trip, I agreed to join her. OKC was the closest to us, and a 10 hour drive and one day later, there we were, the day before the event. My ice cream continues to drip, but something else has caught my eye. My gaze steady, my hand absently handing Jiffy my melting ice cream, I stand. Excuse me a moment, I say and walk straight to the railing of the second level above the canal, keeping my gaze down below, to the other side where an uncannily familiar form is walking with two young women and a young man on ground level. I place my hands on the railing and just stare, my mouth slightly agape. The familiar face looks up. We share a moment in stunned silence. She breaks it in incredulity, calling out to me, Is that Miranda Granger? Is that Joy Bausum? I call back. And it is. I make my way to end of the line of red brick to where a bridge and a set of stairs connect the other side. Something in me wants to run, to run up to her and hug her tight, but composure I maintain. I had just seen her a few months ago and it wasn't like I wouldn't see her again, right? We meet. Jiffy is a bit behind, carrying both of our ice creams; I had just left her there. We embrace and express our shock of seeing each other, in such an unexpected place. What was she doing here? What were we doing here? How were we here at the same time in the same place in a city with a population of a half a million people and dozens of restaurants? Turns out, Joy was in OKC training with her sending organization in preparation for her upcoming move to Asia. She was enjoying the afternoon with her good friends Luke and Alissa Reninger and another friend from the area. It was a moment straight out of a movie, as Joy would later recount to anyone who would listen. Crazy! she would say.Of course Joy must take a picture. Oh, boy, I thought. I had gained a lot of weight since moving back to Louisiana. Mama's cooking, cajun culture, and a depression brought on by a yanked sense of purpose will do that to you. And I know Joy. This picture will go on Facebook for all of our mutual friends to see. This is just for you! I say. It doesn't go on Facebook! Joy rolls her eyes and assures me I look fine. We snap the picture and vow to catch up before Jiffy and I head home. Wouldn't you know that picture went up on Facebook days later? Of course it did. In an album Joy had entitled So many people to see, so little time. The next day, Bob Harper from the Biggest Loser, the sadistic man that he is (don't let that sweet talk on the show fool you; he's not the nice trainer. He's a beast!), nearly slew us with a workout I swear he devised in the bowels of hell. Well, ok, not that dramatic, but it was pretty bad. By evening I could barely walk. Jiffy and I were spent. We had made plans to see Joy that evening. We didn't think we could. It turned out that she couldn't either as she was trapped in a meeting all evening long. We made tentative plans to meet her at the school where she was training the next morning, 20 minutes in the opposite direction from our 10 hour drive home. The next morning was worse. Sore and tired, Jiffy doesn't think she can make it out to see Joy. Something in me says we had better try. I convinced her that our meeting was too extraordinary to be coincidence, we were too close when we should be too far away, and we were too good of friends to not make the effort. So we went. We arrived just in time, in between breaks in her classes, to spend 15 minutes with Joy Beth Bausum for the last time on May 18, 2010. Three months later to the day on August 18, 2010, after collapsing the previous weekend and enduring emergency brain surgery to remove the blood clot threatening her life, Joy Beth Bausum died in a hospital in Malaysia. She was doing what she lived for and died where she always wanted to be.I'm thinking about that day today. The day I thought I saw an apparition that turned out to be a moment written by God. Tears are running down my face. It would be more romantic to see them drop and spread out onto an ink-stained page, but I'm actually typing this up with my Mac. I have it pushed awkwardly back so I don't short out the keyboard; I didn't purchase Apple Care. But back to the point. I don't know what you believe. I often question what I believe. Destiny, fate, God's will and control, these are the thoughts that often plague the mind of one too rational and introspective for her own good. For the most part I believe our lives are unscripted, that we are thrown together in a hodgepodge of interwoven paths, with each of us bouncing off of the choices of others, off of choices made long ago and beyond our control, on trajectories determined all too often not by a divine hand, but by the selfish will of ourselves and others. Like butterflies and hurricanes. But every once and a while, a moment comes. One that has no other explanation but that of a divine composer orchestrating all things together for good. Three months after the day that I saw Joy Bausum walking along the canal in Bricktown, OKC, I was a believer. And I see Joy now, if only in my heart, dancing, twirling, her head tossing like Wordsworth's daffodils. Keeping time with the music. The music only she was privy to, the music to which she always kept time Dance, my sweet friend, dance.For Joy- My Daffodils Daffodils (1804)I WANDER'D lonely as a cloudThat floats on high o'er vales and hills,When all at once I saw a crowd,A , of golden daffodils;Beside the lake, beneath the trees,Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shineAnd twinkle on the Milky Way,They stretch'd in never-ending lineAlong the margin of a bay:Ten thousand saw I at a glance,Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced; but theyOut-did the sparkling waves in glee:A poet could not but be gay,In such a jocund company:I gazed and gazed but little thoughtWhat wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lieIn vacant or in pensive mood,They flash upon that inward eyeWhich is the bliss of solitude;And then my heart with pleasure fills,And dances with the daffodils.By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).August 18, 2010 4:36 PM

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Douglas Loftin posted a condolence

From the old tower hill raod gang and Walkers Cafe.The gang is getting smaller but those good old adkin high school day memories get greater in these decreasing years.Love you,"see you one day dancing and swimming. you know you got that nickname,"truck" from swimming. Douglas Callis'bootsie" Loftin

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JOHN MCPHAUL&FAM posted a condolence

SORRY ABOUT THE LOST QUINTON AND FAMILY.....LOVE YALL STAY BLESSED...AND AS WE KNOW...GOD GOT US....JMCPHAUL AND FAMILY.

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Min. Otis Jeffries posted a condolence

To the entire Greene family the Jeffries' do extent our deepest sympathies for you all at a time like this. May the grace of God and the sweet communion with His holy spirit rest, rule and abide with you.

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Wanda Greene posted a condolence

Though you are gone,you will always have a special place in my heart.

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The family of Roy Lee Greene uploaded a photo

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

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The family of Roy Lee Greene uploaded a photo

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Roy Lee Greene

1939 - 2012

Plant a tree in memory of Roy