Day of Remembering

Two years ago today, my beloved Gram passed away. My Gram was someone who was happiest when she was helping someone. I think the majority of her self worth was wrapped up in her family and how much she could help others. In her last few years of life, she got so she couldn’t do as much for other people and it made her sad and many times she felt like she didn’t have much of a purpose, but she did. Her purpose was that she was my grandma. She loved to bake and cook and until she no longer was able, she would make meals, pies, brownies, and cookies for her neighbors and she delighted in sharing. Anytime I was sick, she would make me chicken soup. There is nothing that cures a person like their Gram’s chicken soup! Gram loved to laugh. She loved to do crossword puzzles, watch game shows and her ‘stories,’ she loved flowers. She loved to do embroidery on towels, pillows, quilts. She made amazing embroidered quilts for her daughters, grandkids, great grands. She made quilts to give to the community-to churches, pregnancy crisis center, families in need. My Gram loved her daughters and ‘sons’, granddaughters and ‘grandsons’, great grandkids, and her two great grandchildren, whom she never met, and took great delight in her family. She loved little kids and would talk to all she came across in church, restaurants, and stores. She beamed from ear to ear when she was able to hold a baby. Gram was always full of advice. There were times I didn’t appreciate her advice, but now I really miss it. I miss her tremendously and can’t believe she has been gone for two years. She was always there when I needed a hug. Now when I need a Gram hug, I wrap up in one of the precious quilts she made for me. My sister finished up two quilts that she started for kids, but my sister made them for mom and I and called them Arms of Love. They are just little quilts we can wrap around us when we need a Gram hug. She always had a smile for me, and if I was down, she would try to cheer me up. She was a strong German woman, with lots of pride and she would always admit she was stubborn, but part of her stubbornness is what kept her going as long as she did, I think. She died of an aortic aneurysm, and her doctor in ER at Kootenai Medical Center told her that she would not live for more than a few hours. Gram told him that if God wanted her to live, He would let her. The doctor said something about her and her God, and my Gram, even though she was in tremendous pain, got that little smirk on her face and twinkle in her eye as she looked at him and said 'well, we will see.' Gram lived another five or six days. The doctor told our family at one point he couldn’t explain why Gram was still alive. Not only was she alive, but until her final day, she was alert, still giving out orders, and surrounded by family. There is no way to explain it; it was God proving he was more powerful than the doctors!! I miss Gram, but I know I will be with her again because we share the same faith in Jesus.

Love those you are with because you never know when your time, or their time, is through. Don’t live with regrets or I should have said this or done that….do it, say it, love each other.

The Father wants all people to honor the Son as much as they honor him. When anyone refuses to honor the Son, that is the same as refusing to honor the Father who sent him. I tell you for certain that everyone who hears my message and has faith in the one who sent me has eternal life and will never be condemned. They have already gone from death to life. John 5:23-25 (Contemporary English Version)

And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. John 17:3