Mother’s Day love is bountiful for Macon mom

On the Thursday before Mother’s Day last year, Molly Muse was told she had cancer.

The words hit her from the blind side, a reminder that life is fragile.

That Sunday, on the day we celebrate motherhood, Molly attended church services at Christ Episcopal in Macon with her family. She had her photograph taken with her sons, Beck and Matt.

Her emotions climbed every rung on the ladder. She remembered three special mothers and how much she missed them.

There was her own mother, Helen Ralsten, who died when Molly was 3 years old. She and Molly’s father, Murrill Ralsten, were killed in the plane crash that claimed the lives of 75 people, including 36 football players, returning from a Marshall University football game on Nov. 14, 1970.

It was the worst tragedy involving a sports team in U.S. history and became the subject of a movie, “We Are Marshall.” Molly can be seen at the end of film with her brother and others who lost family members. They are gathered around the memorial fountain on the campus in Huntington, West Virginia.

She thought about her aunt, Carol Ralsten, who raised her as one of her own children. She died tragically five years ago this spring following a gun accident at her home in Vienna, West Virginia. In Carol’s obituary, Molly was listed as her daughter. They were that close.

And then she remembered her best friend, Cammie Holmes McCook, who had died a month earlier on Easter Sunday, a year and a half after being diagnosed with leukemia.

She and Cammie did everything in lock step, from boarding school to college to sorority sisters. They both married Macon guys within months of each other and had children the same age.

Molly had surgery to remove the tumor. They took out her appendix and half her colon. It was impossible to repair the hole in her heart, left by those three matriarchs.

Despite the uncertainty of her own journey ahead, she had faith on her speed dial, and friends and family lifting her up. She stayed the course, for the sake of her children.

“I felt very strongly that I had to be positive and let them know we could beat this,” she said. “I had to keep a normal routine for them. I wanted to get up and go to work every day. I wanted to be there to cook dinner for them and be at all their ball games. A lot of times, I had to sleep all weekend to catch up. But I did all of it.”

She finished her eight, two-week treatments of chemotherapy in December. She is now in remission.

“I had so many people praying for me and sending me notes of encouragement. It brought me such a peace,” she said. “I kept a journal every day. On one page, I wrote down how I was feeling that day and what side effects I might be having. On the back of every page would be something someone sent me – a Bible verse, a note or quote.”

One of the first notes was from a friend, David Baskette, a cancer survivor.

“Having cancer is a great gift,” he wrote. “Forevermore your life will be guided by the perspective of what is important and what is not. Don’t sweat the small stuff becomes a daily mantra.”

She has always been told she looks like her mother. The resemblance is remarkable.

On a trip to Italy, a woman once came up to her. “You’ve got to be Helen Ralsten’s daughter,” she said. It happened another time when Molly was in college, at a party on Sea Island.

When her son, Beck, was 5 or 6, he saw an old photograph of Molly’s mom holding Molly’s brother.

He thought it was his mother holding him.

Except for the faded snapshots, the only picture she can construct of her parents is one she has collected from the stories of others. She was too young to have her own memories. She can’t even remember the sound of their voices.

Her father was a city councilman and owned a men’s clothing store in Huntington. He grew up in Beckley, West Virginia, where his great-grandfather had founded the town. Murrill and Helen named their daughter Molly Beckley Ralsten. Molly would later give the name to her firstborn son, Beckley, or “Beck” for short.

Murrill met Helen Banda when they were students at Marshall. Her nickname was “Flip.” She was from the steel town of Weirton, the first in her family to go to college.

They were married on Aug. 22, 1959. Molly wore her mother’s wedding dress to her own rehearsal dinner on Sept. 2, 1994.

Molly still has her mother’s charm bracelet. Helen left it in a jewelry box when they made the chartered plane trip with the Marshall team and boosters for a game at East Carolina. It was the first time a school athletic team had ever traveled by plane for a road game.

Molly recently became interested in converting old 8mm home movies of her parents to DVD, bringing them to life in a new way.

“I can actually see them move,” she said.

She has never felt she was a victim, that she was robbed or cheated of the joy of having her parents watch her grow up and have children of her own.

“I have so many wonderful stories from so many people,” she said. “It has been a blessing.”

Angel on earth

There have been God winks, too, a reminder the wide world is often a small one.

Molly tells the story of Gwen Bailey, who now lives in Macon with her daughter, Genene Bailey Muse. In the early 1970s, Gwen was living in North Carolina. A niece, who was attending Marshall at the time, told her about the Ralstens and sent photos of the two young children they had left behind.

Years later, Genene told her mother about her grandson, Ed. He had a new girlfriend he had met at the University of Georgia. Her name was Molly Ralsten. Her parents had died in the Marshall plane crash.

“Nanny went up into her attic and found the two baby pictures she had saved,” Molly said. “She surprised me that first Christmas by wrapping them up and putting them in a box. I’ve had connections like that my whole life.”

On May 7, 2015, Gwen celebrated her 96th birthday.

It was the same day Molly was diagnosed with cancer.

At the time the Southern Airways DC-9 crashed while trying to land in the cold rain and fog in Kenova, West Virginia, Carol Ralsten already had two children and was pregnant with her third.

But she adopted Molly and her brother, Matt, and loved them as her own.

She was an angel on earth. She founded the Good Samaritan Clinic in Vienna, West Virginia. She delivered pea soup – wrapped with a bow and card – to shut-ins as part of the Mustard Seeds ministry at her church. She enjoyed cooking and entertaining.

“The hostess with the mostest,” Molly said. “She made everybody feel like they were the most special person in the room.”

Carol was known for her gentle words and distinctive handwriting. She always sent Valentine’s cards instead of Christmas cards. One family member said “she held us close with her genuine and sincere embrace of people and life.”

It has been five years. Molly said that when her aunt died, the grief was paralyzing.

“It is hard on me that I lost both mothers so suddenly without goodbyes,” she said.

Cammie’s funeral was on April 8, 2015. It was the fourth anniversary of Carol Ralsten’s death.

Molly and Cammie met at Salem Academy, a boarding school for high school girls in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on the campus of Salem College.

Cammie had attended Piedmont Academy in Monticello and was sent to boarding school against her wishes. She arrived at Salem “kicking and screaming.” She refused to get out of the car.

Molly and Cammie were kindred spirits. Their birthdays were two months apart. Cammie convinced Molly to follow her to UGA, where they pledged the same sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma.

At Georgia, Cammie began dating Thomas McCook, from Macon. He introduced Molly to his longtime friend from Macon, Ed Muse.

The Muses and McCooks married the same year and had children about the same time. Beck Muse and Tommy McCook are now high school seniors. Matt Muse and Evans McCook are sophomores. Shorter McCook is in the sixth grade.

When Cammie was diagnosed with leukemia, Molly was a constant at her friend’s side. She prayed for her. She wrote letters of encouragement.

“I never thought she would go as fast as she did,” Molly said. “She used to say to me all the time, ‘Surely I’m going to live to see Tommy graduate.’”

Beck Muse will graduate from First Presbyterian Day School on May 21. Tommy McCook will graduate from Stratford Academy on May 28.

Three weeks ago, Molly returned to Salem Academy for her high school reunion. She and her classmates dedicated a limestone bench and planted a dogwood tree in Cammie’s memory.

Today, as she counts her blessings, Molly will remember those three mothers, all saints. They will always be a part of her.

This story was originally published May 7, 2016 at 8:49 AM with the headline "Mother’s Day love is bountiful for Macon mom."