GG finally received her heavenly welcome early Thursday morning, August 11th. She has a brand new body that is young and healthy, and she is celebrating as she reunites with all of our family that has passed before her.
We headed down to Jackson Friday morning and enjoyed lots of family time, mostly spent around GG’s dining room table. I know she was smiling down on us as we hugged, laughed, told old stories, and ate a lot of yummy food.
HG was very well behaved through all the services. We had a visitation at the funeral home on Friday night and then a short visitation at the church before the funeral on Saturday morning. When it was just about time for the funeral to start, the family was escorted to a back room of the church for a family prayer. As I picked up HG to follow everyone out of the chapel, she said (rather loudly), “Are we done?” That got a snicker out of the little old ladies in the audience. Then, after we finished our prayer and were headed back into the chapel, the preacher asked her what her name was. She immediately quipped, “Grace,” to which he laughed and said, “I should have known!” She then pranced right ahead and led the family procession back into the church.
I held myself together for the most part until the songs started in the service. First, “Amazing Grace” and then “In the Garden,” which made me think of two things- GG strolling through her garden with Jesus (she was a VERY avid gardener) and how happy she would have been to be in church and hear that piano and singing after being homebound for so long. Then, my mom, aunt, and uncle let the pianist choose the special music, and I about lost it again when she started “Surely the Presence,” which was sung in our wedding. At that moment, Helen Grace was standing in my lap, trying to see where the music was coming from, and she wrapped her little arms around my neck, rested her head on mine, and patted my head. I needed that little hug, and I imagined it was GG’s way of comforting me from up above.
The family shared GG’s Bible with the preacher as he prepared for the service, and he found all kinds of neat notes and scribbles in her Bible next to favorite passages. One really cool thing that he shared was that every day GG prayed for each one of her children and would then pray for their families in geographical order but by name. It hit me like a ton of bricks to understand that GG prayed for me by name every single day. What an amazing example of unconditional love!
HG asked for GG a lot over the weekend and even yelled, “GG’s house!,” when we pulled up in front of it. But she seemed to ultimately be ok with the fact that GG has gone to heaven. She’ll ask, “Why?,” every now and then, but she seems to be fine with the explanation that she lived a long, beautiful life and is now with Jesus. She asked me to show her GG several times at the visitation and she handled that fine, but I worried we were going to have a meltdown when it came time to leave the cemetery; however, we told her that GG’s body would rest there while she was in heaven, and she left happily. Whew, this is one of those really difficult times to be a parent and explain things! {One of the preachers shared a story that a child had once asked why they put her grandmother in a jewelry box. He responded that they would put a jewel like her grandmother in nothing less. I thought that was a beautiful way to explain it.}
August 2nd would have been my brother’s 34th birthday. On that day, my mom asked GG to give my brother, Jamin, a big hug for her. GG responded that they were indeed having a BIG party in heaven for him. What an wonderful glimpse into heaven. We will deeply miss GG on this earth but know that our amazing Grace is celebrating eternal life in heaven and will be there to welcome us with open arms one day.
“She was loved by all who knew her for she was an amazing Grace.”
Enjoy a trip down memory lane of GG’s life and some pics from our weekend…
The Lary children: GG (in the bonnet), her little brother, Sam, and older sister, Hazel
Hayes, HG, and Hastings (HG was confused because we were asking her to say “cheese” but she was eating cheese…)
All the great grandchildren (and me) at visitation
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