Cathy Sexton heard her favorite song at Christmas time, “Way Maker,” most popularly performed by Christian artist, Leeland.
Her four granddaughters – and like her own children they are all daughters – sang it to her.
Sexton contracted COVID-19 in late 2020, her daughter Lauren Phillips said.
She died in January, one of more than 80 people in Pickens County to die with COVID-19 that month as the virus raged in the county.
“I believe she had a miracle, it wasn’t the way I wanted,” Phillips said. “The Bible tells us she’s healed, she’s in heaven and she doesn’t’ have any pain anymore and she’s a new person there. And that’s the miracle.”
Sexton was a woman of deep faith, but the quiet and demonstrative kind, not the noisy kind, Phillips said.
A benefits manager, Sexton would constantly be helping people. On the job, at her church, Rock Springs in Easley, and wherever she went, Phillips said.
At her funeral in Gaffney, where Sexton lived before moving to Easley about six years ago, the funeral directors said it was one of the largest attended funerals since the pandemic began.
They were careful about distancing, and Sexton had been careful throughout the pandemic, Phillips said.
Sexton became ill by the start of the year, she had started to do better and then it got worse. She was admitted into St. Francis Downtown Hospital, where nurses did an excellent job, Phillips said.
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Pnumonia and a rejection of plasma were factors as well.
There was a brief moment of joy when it looked like her mother would recover, but her lungs had not healed as they should have and after about two weeks in the hospital, it was time to say, “goodbye.”
“She was ready to go that day, she wasn’t scared to die but she didn’t want to leave us,” Phillips said.
“The night my mom came off the ventilator a nurse, her name was Princess, took her own cell phone and let us talk to her. They had 45 patients on ventilators that weekend and (the nurse) made sure we could talk to our mom.”
Sexton left with a peace that came from her deep faith.
The song she heard her grandchildren sing is about God as a miracle worker.
Sexton had strived to be as much of a miracle worker as she could, treating her daughter’s friends as her own children and being a kind leader when she was the benefits manager for Blockbuster Incorporated, her daughter said. Sexton had helped many friends during hard times and been a comfort to people who had attempted suicide, she never judged and always led with a gentle touch, Phillips said.
“She’s for sure left a legacy, I can only strive to do that, I want my girls to think the same about me,” Phillips said. “She truly lived her life selflessly.”
