My Grandma.

There is a quiet farm in Indiana, where the cool green grass is pushing up from the life-giving earth, and the birds are filling the air with their songs. There, in a long-loved house surrounded by corn fields and sunny skies lies a tiny, delicate old woman, breathing......just breathing. My Grandma. She has returned home to die. It was here she built a house and home with Grandpa. Two quiet, simple farmers with shining eyes, radiant smiles, and hearts bigger than could be contained by the land they nurtured like a baby.

Here she watched her five children leave home and marry. Here she held her grandbabies and watched as they grew and played together, blew out hundreds of birthday candles, uttered prayers of thanksgiving at harvest time and squealed with delight on Christmas morning. Here she taught us not just through words, but through her actions, about life, love, faith, and how to pour heart and soul into the people around you and make the world brighter where you stand. Here she laughed, worked, played, sang, prayed... Here she watched the ebb and flow of life - here she returned, alone, when Grandpa went before her to the other side.

Her teenage love, her life partner, her Sweetheart. After more than 40 years of marriage, when Grandpa drew his last breath, Grandma said "There goes one of God's greatest creations." I'm sure Grandpa gave an adoring chuckle when he heard that, and if he'd been able to, he would have reminded her that he was only 1/2 - that without her he could never have been the complete person that he'd been.

To me, Grandma was what grandmas should be - always round, rosy, fully of love and laughter. She was always scurrying here and there, and forever looking for some misplaced paper. Grandma's house was summer fun, family togetherness, Christmas magic, and vegetable soup. She taught me how to shuck corn, how to pick green beans, how to pull up pantyhose, about God, the joys of the treadmill, and that every girl in the world looks more beautiful with Shirley Temple curls. Somehow with a love, sweetness, faith, and a simplicity that were almost childlike she helped equip two generations of her family for adulthood.

And so now, the other half of one of God's greatest creations lies, just breathing, surrounded by her children. They hold her hand and quietly sing her the songs of her heart - the songs of faith she's sung since childhood. In grief, they wait for her to leave them. Unseen are the ones who have gone before - her Sweetheart, her oldest daughter. In joy, they wait for her to join them.

And so, Goodbye, sweet Grandma. You will be missed, loved and never forgotten.

XOXO