A Time To Mourn...

A belated update...

Grandpa Art's heart stopped beating on July 13th, 2010, in the minutes before I finalized my last post.  I found out only a half an hour after I finished writing it.  He was not suffering from dementia or alzheimer's.  He was himself, even in the end.  He was ready to meet Jesus, and to take his first peek at heaven.  He told everyone in his hospital room the night before that he was leaving, and that he would see them all later.  He also talked about just seeing beyond the "corridor"... not a typical word for this South Dakota farmer.  He was ready to go home.

He chose the scriptures that were read at his funeral, one from chapter 14 of John, Psalm 23, Psalm 121, and Ecclesiastes chapter 3.

I'm not sure how I might convey to you the kind of person Grandpa Art was, but I would like to try.  I will give you some snippets from that weekend, and from the years earlier, when I first came to know him.  The weekend of his funeral was spent celebrating a life well lived, and mourning our loss... our great loss.

As I stood in his kitchen, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for O-dog, a kitchen that was small and familiar, all I could do was think of the first time I had toast in the morning after staying at Art and Alma's. Grandpa Art was so concerned that I didn't want peanut butter on my toast.  He asked once, and then again...

A: "Sherri, here's the peanut butter for your toast."

me: "I don't put peanut butter on my toast. Jelly is enough.  Thanks, though."

----- five minutes pass, a couple conversations about the day, a news story on the t.v. -------

A: "We've got plenty of peanut butter here, Sherri, you'd better have some."

me: "No, really, I'm fine - peanut butter isn't usually something I eat in the morning."

A: "Well, if you change your mind - here it is.  It will be a while before lunch" (said with a teasing smile)

I don't know why this exchange came to mind this last weekend, but it reminded me of how intimate breakfast at their house was.  How you couldn't sneak peanut butterless toast by this man well into his 80s at the time.  And how special you felt to have one of the seats at their table, in their home, even as a visitor, the
"new girlfriend" of their grandson. 

To be honest, I always felt like my grandparents set the gold standard of grandparents (and they do), so I was caught a little off guard at how my husbands' grandparents (all 4 of them) seemed just as genuine and loving as mine.  I have been richly blessed in that department, and as they each age with every passing year, as we all do, and we keep having to let go of one more, and then one more...  I find my heart overwhelmed with gratitude and pain.  It is so very difficult to let go of them.  They lived in a different era.  One where honor wasn't a medal or a badge, but how you lived. An era of honorable men, and dedicated, classy women.  I think of my own grandpa Alvin, who is still living, but has struggled with some health problems.  How the stoic farmer can be both stern and tender.  He feels deep, and he loves even deeper.  He portrayed a picture of Christ's love for me, one of affection and tenderness, when I needed it most.  After my dad died when I was 12, I needed him not in a disciplinary-dad figure, but one of open arms and tenderness.  He never withheld his whiskery cheek for a kiss and a hug.  I still love the fact that when I take my babies to meet him, he will never shy away from holding them or just sitting and watching them, listening to them coo.  I truly believe that God provides for our needs, using people that may not even know they are doing His work.  When I met people at Art's visitation - people I had never met before, it was evident that he had served a purpose in many peoples' lives.  He sowed seeds of good into peoples' lives.  He was a servant of the Lord, and we were all blessed to have been a part of his life.

As I sat in the church pew during Art's funeral service I was reminded of a Christmas eve service, sitting in between Art and his grandson, my hubby.  The same pastor who talked about wisemen, camels in the desert, and baby Jesus in a manger on Christmas eve, now tried to make it through scriptures and a eulogy without letting his emotions get the best of him (key word being tried).  Poor Pastor Augie, doing his best to honor the memory of Art, his friend.  It was a beautiful service.  Across the aisle sat more than a dozen veterans who were part of a color guard, honoring Art not only for his acts of bravery in the military, his years of service in the same color guard, but also for his friendship.

I thought of the first time I had seen him since Amelia died.  I was just sitting in the living room, and the boys were watching a cartoon on t.v.  He cleared his throat, and went on to tell me me how often he thought of us, and how he wasn't too good at writing notes to people, but that he wanted me to know how sad he was when he heard the news about Amelia.  She had impacted him, and he wanted me to know.  If there is one thing that has become glaringly obvious to me in the past year, it is that no one likes to talk about death, or mention people who have died, especially young people, particularly babies - it is scary, it is horrible, it is to most... unmentionable.  I get it. I have been there, on the other side, unsure what to say, or how to say it - scared into silence.  I now understand that it is an impossibility to cause the bereaved person more pain.  I also understand the awkwardness, and I try to assume that people think about Amelia, and they just don't ask about her or say anything out of fear.  I will never, ever forget when he mentioned her to me.  I know that Art was a brave soldier, evidenced by the honors and medals he received in WWII (from Gen. Patton), and by the fellow veterans who stood to honor him both at the church and at the cemetery.  To me, however, his bravery never shone more brightly than the moment he mentioned my daughter's name, recognizing her life, even though it meant he would have to risk seeing my tears.  It was brave, simply put. Although I didn't shed a tear that day, the tears roll down my cheeks today - touched by a few simple sentences he didn't have to say, but did anyway.  It was honorable.

Throughout the cemetery service, the color guard stood there stoicly in a line next to us, their eyes focused elsewhere, their minds surely thinking of the man who stood next to them for so many years, honoring others who had gone before.  Art felt it was his duty to honor the men who had served this country, to be a part of that same color guard - something he respectively did for years, sometimes more than once a week.  The veteran who brought the flag to Glenda and Fred, like several of the other veterans, was in his 70's, and as he approached us with the pristinely folded flag, his breath was labored, sweat dripped from his brow, and he honorably choked through the few sentences he had to say.

The gunshots rang in my ears, followed by the sweet sound of trumpet taps, floating in the deafening silence.  I sat on a folding chair, thankful that I didn't have to stand in the sizzling heat 36 weeks pregnant... and thankful to be 36 weeks pregnant.  I sat there with my feet upon the all too familiar green indoor/outdoor carpet.  I thought back to sitting at their kitchen table for the first time, not knowing for sure I would marry their grandson, not knowing for sure I would ever be back again, not sure which direction was south, not sure I would be able to convince Art I didn't really want peanut butter on my toast, and that I would make it until lunch time without it.  All the things I wasn't sure of then... and yet how sure I was that even though a stranger, the newest person at their table, I felt special.  Even though I was not their grand-daughter, I was welcomed and made to feel important. 

At the cemetery I was feeling special to be under that tent, to be holding one of his great-grandsons on my lap, and to be honoring his memory, his life.

"There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace."   Ecclesiastes 3:1-8