one last trip to Iowa....

[PostmodernProphet]

Will be gone for a few days......My mother passed this morning at the age of 94....the funeral is in Iowa on Saturday.....

a time of celebration, as I know she is spending today reacquainting herself with her parents, my father, my brother, and her seven brothers and sisters who preceded her......

I also expect she will ask God if she can change the curtains in her room to something that will go better with the couch......

[jimnyc]

I'm sorry to hear about this, PMP. Losing Mom is difficult. You and Mom will be in our prayers. :(

[PostmodernProphet]

back.....it was a wonderful funeral.....the weather was crisp and sunny, the music was great, preacher gave an excellent service, flowers were beautiful, food was great, cousins gathered, some from hundreds of miles away that I hadn't seen for many years.....only sorrowful note was my aunt, 91, the only surviving sibling of a large family who has Alzheimers.....I sat down beside her....."Are you Stella's son?"......"No, Henrietta's youngest"......"Sorry, doesn't ring a bell".......She and Mom had apartments next to each other and for the last two weeks were across the hall from each other at the nursing home......its going to be hard on her......

[Abbey Marie]

I'm sorry for your loss, PMP. Your perspective is great.

[aboutime]

Please accept my condolences. Lost my Mom in 2000.

Hope you don't mind a special prayer for her tonight.

Now she can change those curtains to any way she likes.

God Bless.

[jimnyc]

back.....it was a wonderful funeral.....the weather was crisp and sunny, the music was great, preacher gave an excellent service, flowers were beautiful, food was great, cousins gathered, some from hundreds of miles away that I hadn't seen for many years.....only sorrowful note was my aunt, 91, the only surviving sibling of a large family who has Alzheimers.....I sat down beside her....."Are you Stella's son?"......"No, Henrietta's youngest"......"Sorry, doesn't ring a bell".......She and Mom had apartments next to each other and for the last two weeks were across the hall from each other at the nursing home......its going to be hard on her......

It sucks sometimes that it takes a funeral to bring so much family together. It sounds like it was a nice funeral. I hope your Aunt has an easy transition and it's not too tough on her. :(

[Jeff]

I am sorry for your loss Pmp but you are exactly right, although we will miss our loved ones they are now reuniting with others and making a place for us to spend eternity .

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

I am sorry to hear of your great loss PMP. My mother is 85 and in very bad health. I dread the day when she departs but know you are right about how we should view it as a blessing for those that have gone to receive their reward. It's good that you have that understanding and faith.--Tyr

[PostmodernProphet]

Before we left Iowa my sisters and I divided up some items that we didn't want to put up for auction.....

a few remaining paintings my father had done that she had hanging on the walls....though he was a farmer he was also an artist.....I have the first picture he painted for his mother at the age of 16 hanging in our bedroom.....some ribbons and a medal he won in art shows......he won first place in a juried art contest for the state of Iowa one year.......shocked the crap out of him since he was the only non-professional in the event.....Oprah Winfrey has one of his paintings of a covered bridge in Madison County......

one of the things I shared with my parents was a love of the beauty found within nature......the memento I have of my grandmother is a polished abalone shell my father gave her when he came back from California.....he was there during the depression....he started out digging potatoes in Minnesotta as a migrant worker.....when that season was over he followed the threshing crews across South Dakota and Wyoming (they worked with horse drawn teams in those days)......then he heard a dairy farmer in Bakersfield, California was hiring any church-going Iowa farm boys that showed up so off he went.....big operation....they milked cows 24 hours a day in shifts, all by hand.....the guy had a dormitory just for his milking crew.....I remember when I was a kid I would spend an hour every Sunday afternoon staring into that shell when we visited grandma (well, to be honest, there wasn't much else to do......grandma didn't talk much, we just sat and looked at her)........

when dad died I added a two inch garnet crystal to the collection......now I've added a large chunk of rose quartz they bought on their honeymoon in the Black Hills (did I mention they celebrated their 70th anniversary?) and a large chunk of sandstone with an opal embedded in it to remember mom......perfect for her...a bit rough around the edges, beauty within.....

and finally, the Bible from which dad read after every meal......one chapter at a time, and no one moved an inch until the last word was read, no matter how late you were to do something or how long the chapter was.....its in tatters now, they've had others since...but this one?.....as we said "it has gravy on every page"........