Her name is Joeann. She works at the Hampton Inn in Jackson. She tends the dining room, making the breakfasts, and cleaning off tables.

She is easy to talk to.

“I learned how to be friendly from my mama,” Joeann says, warming up my coffee. “My mama believed in being kind to everybody she meet.

“But don’t get me talking about my mama. Won’t be a dry eye.”

Joeann is mid-fifties. Cheerful. With an armor-piercing smile. She has rich mahogany skin, short dark hair, and a face that seems to glow.

“My mama was humble. She went to a little country Baptist church out in Pochahontas. She had 10 kids, and we were all crazy. Daddy was a brick layer.

“Everyone in Jackson knew Mama. They knew her as the woman who’d help anyone who was hard up.

“She’d take anyone in. You know, strays. Didn’t matter who they were or what they done.

“One time, some local kids didn’t have nowhere to live, ‘cause they parents died. They was orphans, overnight. So my dad went and collected the children, five of them kids. He brought them all home to live with us. Even the little baby who was still nursing.

“My mama raised’em all. Just like they was her own. And just like that, she had 15 kids in her house.

“People’d always ask her, ‘Ain’t you tired of raising kids, Bernice?’ She’d just say, ‘I don’t have time to be tired, I’m too busy trying to get to heaven.’”

“Another time, she was babysitting for a family up in town, they had a son who had some bad problems. When he became an adult, he struggled with addiction and drugs. Whenever he came home from rehab, his own mama wouldn’t let him in her house, on account of his problems, and his stealing.

“So, my mom would take care of him. She’d cook him hot meals, give him a place to shower, and he insisted on sleeping in his car, so she brought him fresh linens and pillows. She loved him.

“That man told that story at my mama’s funeral. Not a dry eye.”

“Any time my friends had problems at home, when they was teenagers, they all came to stay with Mama. She’d get them working in her garden. She’d feed them real food. She’d take them to church. They never wanted to leave.

“And once, there were these two little blond boys who she babysat for sometimes. They were sweet little boys. From New Orleans. They were real good at football. But they always, ALWAYS loved my mama.

“Well, let me tell you about them two boys. They loved my mama so much that when Mama’s house burned down, she lost near ‘bout everything, something happened.

“One afternoon, our whole family was out in the yard, cleaning up the damage. Mama was picking up and almost in tears.

“All of a sudden, this big ole U-Haul truck comes into her driveway. It was those two football boys, all growed up, driving a U-Haul.

“Those boy brought her new bedroom sets, and all kind of furniture, and so much food you wouldn’t believe.

“They was such sweet boys. Their names were Manning. Yes. The Manning Boys. That was it. Peyton and Eli.”

Not a dry eye.