It Is Finished

What a whirlwind of activity the last 6 days have been! I have cherished the time spent together with my extended family, but I'm so tired, so I'm glad it's all over. We've had meals together with family members almost every day from Friday - Wednesday. The only day we didn't was Saturday.

The most emotional part of the whole thing for me was the viewing on Tuesday evening. I had never been to one before. I didn't say good-bye to my Grandma in the hospital, so I did that evening. It was good for me to have closure, even though I knew my Grandma wasn't actually "there." My cousin made a really nice slideshow that they had looping for the first half hour or so and one of the songs in there was "Come to Jesus" by Christ Rice. I can't hear that song without crying, so I was kind of glad when they stopped playing the slideshow! It's this beautiful song:

The lyrics that hit me were:
"With your final heartbeat kiss the world goodbye,
Go in peace and laugh on Glory's side
And fly to Jesus, fly to Jesus,
Fly to Jesus and live"

That's exactly what my Grandma has done. I said in the hospital, "She's actually more alive than we are right now because she's in heaven." At the viewing and the funeral, my cousins + I did the music. I played piano, one cousin played acoustic guitar, one cousin played electric guitar, and my cousin-in-law played the cello. At the viewing, all the cousins sang, but at the funeral, only 3 of them sang. We did "It Is Well With My Soul," "In Christ Alone," "How Great Thou Art," and at the viewing we also did, "My God Is So Big." At the viewing, there were tears and laughter throughout the evening. It's sad to say good-bye, but we also had so much peace knowing where she is.

The burial was yesterday morning and we had prayed that the rain would stop. It did stop raining right before the burial and then started again right after it was done! Thank you, Lord! We had our kids there for that part (it was a closed casket), so Kiera just stood there quietly holding my cousin's hand while someone gave a short message about the glory my Grandma is experiencing and about the hope we have and all we have to look forward to. Blake found a dirt pile to play in during that time. He is such a boy! After that, some ladies from the church my Grandma went to and some of my family goes to served us lunch and it was SO good! They had fruit platters with fruit dip, buns, cheese curds, vegetable soup with beef in it, and rice krispy squares for dessert. I filled up mostly on fruit. Jared brought the kids home after that (my friend came over with her 2 kids to baby-sit while Blake napped) and then the funeral was in the afternoon. It was mentioned many times how my Grandma was a prayer warrior and how her prayers have affected our family, as well as many other people. What a legacy she has passed on to us!

After the funeral, we went home for a couple of hours and then Jared went out to a friend's house while I took the kids to the place my Grandma used to live where the family was dividing up her things. On the way there, the conversation went like this:
Kiera - "Are we going to great Grandma's"
Me - "Yep."
Kiera - "Is she going to be there?"
Me - "No, remember I told you she went to heaven?"
Kiera - (paused to think about that) "And now she's REALLY happy?"
Me - (trying not to cry) "Yes, she is!"
Kiera - "Can I go see her?
Me - "Someday you can, but not today."

Wow! Kiera may not understand what happened, but she seems to "get" the part about heaven being a wonderful place. It was really weird going through my Grandma's stuff and taking whatever we wanted. It felt sort of like a mass burglary, except you don't usually rob a person's house in broad daylight with a group of 16 people! I can be very practical at times, so I took a bunch of toilet paper (we were on our last roll at home), fabric softener, a pot, unopened packages of napkins, styrofoam + plastic cups, paper towel rolls, scotch tape, sticky tack, and cloth covered hangers. I also took 3 games (Pick up Sticks, Racko, and Sorry), 2 china teacups with matching little plates (she had a lot of that stuff), a container of spelt flour and a container of buckwheat flour (JACKPOT!), some frozen vegetables, and a frozen pizza. There were no arguments about who wanted what, so it was a fairly easy process! I collapsed into bed exhausted last night and I'm glad that life is moving on now. It sort of felt like everything was on pause while we were going through this. I am actually slightly jealous of my Grandma getting to be in heaven with Jesus, but I don't want to join her yet! I'm sad, but so happy for her at the same time! For her, it is finished! As the verse on the front of her eulogy says, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day." 2 Timothy 4:7 + 8