Posts Tagged ‘death’
Life in a Matter of Sentences
Posted by: the susie solution on: March 23, 2015
- In: Christianity | death | grieving
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This post is really for those who know me, or know my family, or knew my mom. Here I have posted the memorial service bulletin, the audio of the memorial service, and the slideshow of Mama’s life. It’s not that I object to anyone else seeing these things – but it’s not likely to mean much. It absolutely is NOT allowed to share this post or its contents in any way, shape, or form without my express consent. Please respect our family’s privacy!!
One of the hardest things in getting ready for my mom’s memorial service last December was putting together her bio for the memorial service bulletin, and then choosing the photos for and writing the narrative for the slide show. How do you reduce 84 years of life to a mere one page of print – even single spaced, small font? Or to a 15 minute slide show of a hundred pictures narrated by a few hundred words? There was so much that I wanted the world to be able to see of my mom, of the very uncommon life she had lived, of just how different her choices had been from what they could so easily HAVE been, given her childhood. Even we kids only knew such a small portion of my mom’s life. We just didn’t realize how small until she was gone. (I do have a very small number of service programs left, so if you knew Mama and would like one, let me know; first come, first served.) If you intend to listen to the service, I suggest you look at the program first to keep the players straight.
Below is the memorial service. IF YOU ARE USING INTERNET EXPLORER, you may not be able to play the .wav file, but it works fine on most other browsers. (OR contact me and I will see if I can send it to you as a file.) Corey is the first brother you hear. As Cherry explains, Brooke was unable to attend the service because both of their girls were sick, so Cherry simply led the congregation in singing “Until Then”, while Alyssa signed it. I wish there was a video of it, so you could SEE Alyssa; it was beautiful, and Mama would have loved it so. (Alyssa is a professional interpreter, and Mama was very proud of her for it.) Mama always hated the line “And things of earth that caused the heart to tremble, remembered there will only bring a smile.” She felt, as do I, that that is unscriptural; when we get to Heaven, we will be so caught up in the joy of being with Jesus that we won’t even REMEMBER the things of earth. So she had had me write a replacement verse: “And pain and anguish here that make us tremble, will be forgotten there in Jesus’ smile.” Because of a miscommunication in the last-minute shuffle, though, the version displayed to the congregation to sing was a traditional one rather than the altered one I had sent to the girls to prepare. Alyssa, though, signed it (and I sang it) as Mama had wanted it, so her wishes were at least partly honored. Tim leads off the duet of reading with Gary. The audio includes the narration of the slide show, the actual show of which is included below, so you can skip from 9:42 to 23:30 on the timer.
The slide show, being put together in quite a bit more haste than I had hoped would be the case, with not nearly as much time for editing and proofing as it should have had, has photos left out that should have been in and photos that are redundant. There were also a number of photos I WANTED to have, but was unable to find – probably because Mama had spent the year giving away most of her photos of her grands. We had been very careful to take “last visit pictures” with all the relatives who came to see her but when we went to put the show together, we discovered that a great number of them were nowhere to be found on Rob’s camera, either of our home computers nor even the back up harddrive. They were just….. gone – and there was no time to contact folks to see if they had any other copies to contribute. I ended up having to hunt up other pics from our own albums or facebook. It hurt dreadfully that so many of the pictures of Mama’s kids and grandkids at the end of the video aren’t of her WITH them, but just of …. them … someplace. (I bawled about it for an hour, to be honest.) But there is at least one picture of every person in this family that Mama loved so much.
I’d intended to record the audio narration, with Mama’s favorite hymns to fill in the gaps, but since the slide show itself wasn’t finished until into the wee hours of the morning of the service, there was no way to accomplish that. I’d just have to do it live. I managed to make it through by doing it from the back of the church, so I wasn’t looking at anyone, just the screen, my script, and the microphone. (My drama training does occasionally come in useful!) Doing it “on the fly”, though, did lead to some gaffes, the funniest of which came when I switched horses mid-stream, intending to put something more smoothly and making it worse, instead. The subject of my brother, Tim’s, first marriage is a terribly painful one to the family, but since out of that marriage came my parents’ first three dearly loved grandchildren, Stacy, Josh and Holly, the fact of the marriage’s existence was given the same acknowledgment in Mama’s history as those of her other kids, although I didn’t name his wife. In the later part of the narrative, I deal with the event of Tim’s second marriage. What I originally wrote was, “Some years after Tim’s first wife left him…”, but during the service, as I was approaching that point, it occurred to me that it would be kinder to put it in a more neutral term, so I decided to change it to, “Some years after Tim’s first marriage ended….” What came out was a most unfortunate mix. “Some years after Tim’s first wife ended….” (Honestly, that was NOT what I meant. Even subconsciously. At least, I don’t think so. Just in case you are wondering, the woman is quite alive and has not, to my knowledge of the moment, ended.)
The slide show has been through a couple of different processes by now to get it into this format, so the photos are not as crisp as the originals, and if you full-screen the show, the photos and titles get a little fuzzier. It is beyond my technical skills to do anything about it, and I don’t want to wait another 5 months to try to figure something else out so I can get this thing done! It is what it is.
Last summer, someone sent Mama the lyrics to a modern hymn, new to her, but that I have known for some years now. I showed her this youtube of it so she could hear the melody and the voice of the original singer. She loved it, and felt it so achingly clearly expressed her feelings of what she was going through – and had yet to face at that point. As this post draws to a close, I’d like to share it with you all as well. It is titled “Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer”, by Keith and Kristyn Getty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMuVeSJTC-Q “Jesus, Draw Me Ever Nearer”
So, there you have it. 84 years reduced to a matter of minutes. SO much left out. But it is my hope that what is included will fan the warm memories of those who knew her and maybe bring back memories long-forgotten to be treasured once again.
None of us become fully the men and women we wish we could be; Mama was keenly aware of her failings. But she was also aware of, and frequently overwhelmed by, the fact that by God’s enabling, we can all be and do much better than there might be any reason to expect, and that God’s grace is more than sufficient to make up for all the ways we fall so short. The testing of Mama’s heart is now ended – and indeed, in His likeness she DID wake!
To God be the glory – GREAT things He has done!
The Gathering
Posted by: the susie solution on: March 2, 2014
“The evening wore on…. That’s a very nice expression, isn’t it? With your permission, I’ll say it again… The evening wore on.”
Harvey fans will recognize the line. Language fans will recognize the pleasure of a phrase that manages to capture a world of nuance in a very few words.
One of the blessings I am thankful for in my heritage is that I come from a family of word lovers. My maternal grandmother, Grandma Gunny (a.k.a. GG) immigrated to this country from Sweden when she was four. Because her mother did not allow her to play with neighborhood children (afraid they would make fun of her for being foreign), GG learned her English in school, which resulted in her using a very proper variety of the language rather than the colloquial version she would otherwise have absorbed. Being an avid reader, she acquired an impressive vocabulary. Until dementia closed her mental dictionary, I never knew GG at a loss for just the precise word to use, no matter how obscure. She was a crossword puzzle and word jumble fan, as are my mom, several of my siblings and I. Although GG wasn’t a game player, the generations since are very fond of Scrabble and other word-based games. My grandfather was also a voracious reader, and that love of reading cascades down the generational lines all the way to my own grands. No matter which family members were present, conversations around our table were lively affairs, and puns were ALWAYS on the menu!
It is to GG that I attribute my own passion for the nuances of words, and my delight in the intricacies of the construction of language. She wasn’t a writer, but I couldn’t write as I do without the influence she had on developing my appreciation for words as both tools and toys.
Solomon wrote a proverb I like to apply to those of us who love language. “Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word fitly spoken.” Using just the right word carries an immense satisfaction. Think of just the ways to indicate the act of moving one’s legs to travel from one place to another. One can walk, of course. How pedestrian. (Like I said, puns are always on the menu.) But there’s no need to merely “walk” when you can saunter, skip, mosey, sidle, strut, slink, march, sashay, float, or trudge! The whole tone of a story can depend on just that simple choice of words. For example, think of the opening line of so many well-known jokes: “A man walks into a bar….” Now substitute one of the words I gave above for “walks”. Each of them gives an entirely different feel to the set-up, doesn’t it? (And I don’t know about you, but I have a verrry hard time using “sashay” or “skip” referring to a guy. One more nuance!)
Sometimes, which word you use in a situation depends on your perspective. The quote at the beginning of this post obviously came from someone who enjoyed the event. If it was an evening spent at a fashion show, most guys would probably describe it as “The evening dragged on. For-e-ver.” When my husband spent 5 years in Japan, one difference he had to get used to in language perspective concerned one person being called to approach another. In English, we call and say, “Come here” and the response is, “I’m coming.” The referent point is where the CALLER is, and that the responder is coming TO him. In Japanese, the caller also says, “Come here”, but the response is, “I’m going” – the referent point being where the RESPONDER is and the fact that he is leaving FROM where he is at now.
Since my mother was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, the words “death” and “dying” have understandably become rather a more common part of our vocabulary. For most of us – even believers – our thoughts of death tend to focus on it as leaving – leaving the world of the familiar, leaving family. But there is a phrase that is used a number of times in the Old Testament that I have long loved because it turns that reference point around.
First used in Genesis 25:8, it says of Abraham that he “… breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full of years, and was gathered to his people.” And was gathered to his people.
Remember how Jesus said, weeping over Jerusalem, “How often I would have gathered your children as a hen gathers her chicks…” If you’ve ever seen a hen gathering her chicks, you know the tender, fiercely protective action it is. She doesn’t just hold her wings out and say, “Here, chick, chick.” No, she actively pursues and gathers them in. Only a chick that flatly refuses to come under her protective wings will be left to fend for itself. We who die in the Lord may not have another human being around when we die, but we will never be alone when we die. God doesn’t just open The Door for us to walk through as He waits for us on the Other Side. Even as we breathe our last breath, He is there to gather us in. We don’t have to do a thing.
My mother is an old woman, old and full of years. Like Abraham, she will leave behind family members who are still living. But, like Abraham, “her people” – OUR people – the true gathering of God’s family – isn’t here on earth, anyway.
Our referent point is here; God’s referent point is eternity. We feel we’re being left behind; God knows that, in Him, we are never apart. We see dying as leaving our family; God knows it to be joining the Family.
At the end of our days, whether our life wore on, or dragged on, or something in between, for all the uncertainties and mysteries that lie in just what Death is, it is a comfort to know one thing for certain: at the end of it all, we’ll be gathered Home.
the susie solution 