Linda had that unique ability to crack a person up.

The last couple of weeks things have gotten muddy. Problems. Death. Loss. Hurricanes. Math. My broken website. Cold feet. Problems. It reminds me of a song Jamie Grace sings:

I’ve had a long day, I just wanna relax
Don’t have time for my friends, no time to chit chat
Problems at my job, wonderin’ what to do
I know I should be working but I’m thinking of you and
Just when I feel this crazy world is gonna bring me down
That’s when your smile comes around

That is exactly where I’m at right now.

Aunt Linda died, and I’m sitting here scrolling through all these old photos on the Facebook.  I’m worried about my cousins and planning to go to the funeral. I hate that our family has been living all over the country, and my children didn’t even know Aunt Linda. How could they not know someone who was such a main character in my childhood? There’s regret, but what could be done differently, really? It is what it is.

Linda (in front) and Mom. I’m guessing this was Granddaddy and Granny’s horse.

at Amber’s wedding in 2008

I’ve often said it, and I’ll say it again. Life is a series of problems to solve.

Not endless though. The series of problems definitely has an end for each of us. Our family is acutely aware of that on this day.

But life is glorious, truly glorious.

In spite of all the problems, there are enough joys sprinkled in that make it all worth it. Some of them you have to look hard to find, and some are as easy as a chocolate chip cookie. I think hugs may be my personal favorite joy of life. Isn’t that funny? I once read that a human needs like 7 hugs a day, though I doubt that was a highly scientific statement.

Linda’s life was full of ups and downs too. Yes, she was married 3 times, developed diabetes, and had to fight many battles in her life. But wow at what she accomplished!

These 2 called her Mom too.

In addition to Amber and Ethan (Linda’s children) and their families, there were all these young people basically camping out at Linda’s house, calling her mom, who came to her in their teens when they needed some light in their lives! They might not have even realized that was the light of Jesus shining through their beloved second mother, but that’s exactly what it was, the love that she showed them, drawing them to her like moths to the flame.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”    Matthew 5:14-16

I was so inspired by the way our family gathered around their beloved Mom. Literally, when we went to see Linda last week, we opened the door to this tiny apartment full of young people and Linda.

The way the family looked out for each other, kept each other’s children, and the love that they shared was truly inspiring. I hope that as my children reach the age that their friends are teens facing troubles, that we will also show our sons’ friends this amazing amount of love and kindness that Linda has given these sweet young people. Love is so contagious. It’s like bamboo. It spreads well and takes over if you let it.

Linda and Amber, back when we were kids.

Amber did a wonderful job of taking care of her mother at the end, with the help of the family. Chi, Linda, Mom, and I marveled at how Amber could work all day, pick up a toddler niece just because she wanted to see her, go to the grocery store with 3 kids, and then come over and cook us all vegetable soup and visit.

Amber had also asked everyone to give Mom and I a day alone with Linda to visit it up since we had flown so far, which was so unbelievably sweet because I think those two days of visiting with Linda at the end are my favorite memories of her.

At the end of your life, all the “small stuff” we’re usually walking around sweating sort of melts away, and you talk about the GOOD stuff. We walked up and down memory lanes. I learned things I’d never known about the family. Linda confessed her regrets to us, but even more she shared laughs with us. We laughed all day long, even in the midst of this. We could do that because she was at peace with herself and where she was going. There were still people here she was worried about, loved ones she was hesitant to leave behind, but her time had come.

Around 10 years ago, when Linda still lived in Alabama

The thing about life is, it goes on. Even while we were saying good-bye to one of our most beloved, spunky, fun, and motherly members, we were also rocking new ones in our laps.

Oh, that it didn’t have to end! If only we could all always be together.

Heaven. In Heaven we can. I do pity the ones who cannot believe, who have no faith, no hope of Heaven. We pray for you to find this hope because it is the great reunion we look forward to with joy. It is not the end. The soul lives on. Generation may replace generation here on earth, but in Heaven, generation JOINS generation in a beautiful reunion of love.

Linda was the youngest. Here she is with her sister and parents.

Maw-Maw, Granny, “Railroad”, Linda, Amber, and Ethan. The good ol’ days, how I remember them. This was our last activity together as a whole family besides Thanksgiving and Christmases. Both of my parents and brother and sister were all there too.

I had a dream last summer. Mom, Linda, Amber, and I were at a family gathering, but what was weird was that Granny and Maw-Maw were there too, and of course, they left us years ago. The men in the family were also there, but they were not the ones I was talking to in the dream.

In the dream Granny and Maw-Maw (who have been dead for years) were walking around with us, and I wanted to hang out with them so badly. Mom did too. We kept trying to follow them around and talk to Granny and Maw-Maw because we were so excited to see them. But they were having none of it and instead personally escorted us back to this 2nd building. There were two buildings with a yard between them. They told us, “No, this is the staging area, and you are still needed in the other building.”

I also remember that my cousin Amber was in charge of everything in the dream. Perhaps Granny and Maw-Maw were pointing us back to Amber and Linda because at the time we still had both of them. And then all of a sudden I woke up, and I was all kinds of disturbed because there’s just something disturbing about a dream full of ghosts who wouldn’t quite look you in the face.

I woke up thinking, “Oh no! Whose funeral was that!!??” And then I knew that it was probably Linda’s, and Maw-Maw and Granny had come to take her home.

It’s hard to explain a dream, as dreams are so weird anyway, but that dream left such an impression that I still remember much of it vividly.

We are so lucky in my family because we come from this legacy of strong, southern women.

These women have been through tough, terrible things, all of them, and yet every single one of them was the epicenter of her family. Each of these women, Granny, Maw-Maw, Linda, and still we that remain, have stood our ground in times of trouble. We have clung to God to see us through. We’ve made mistakes, and we’ve cleaned up our messes. We are redeemed, trusting in Jesus, and there will never be an end for us.

One day we will all be together again.

Yes, Linda may have gone home, but she left a legacy of love and faith behind her, and we will see her again.

Maw-maw, Mom, & Linda

The post Saying Good-bye to Aunt Linda appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

The other day, as I dug through the books on my shelves, I came across a book I have thought of a lot lately, a book like no other.

It’s the little book of Poetry, written by my grandmother, BHK. We’ll call her Beth. Beth died when I was 16, of breast cancer. Her death was one of those that didn’t sit well with anyone. No one said, “Well, it was just her time to go.”

Everyone was more like, “Why did she have to go so soon?”

It was Christmas, and she was only 56. You see, that’s another reason some of us have never been the same on Christmas. There’s more to our Charlie Brown-ness than just commercialism.

To make it worse, Christmas was HER THING. No, really. She owned Christmas, I tell you. She made such a display of decorating her house that she won town awards.

(I’m going to do that this year, too, Grandma! I’m going all out!)

senior portrait

Beauty was her gift. Beautiful Beth. She had a house full of beautiful ceramics, all created by Beth, all perfectly arranged and well kept. Her closet was full of hand-made clothes, mostly dresses. She was prissy, frilly, sarcastic, and fun. Sitting down with a good book, a glass of un-sweet tea, and a cigarette, that’s how we’ll always picture her.

You won’t believe me when I tell you this, but by the time I was born, she wore false eye lashes every single day, and perfume. I used to stand in her bathroom for 30 minutes at a time, just gazing at the fantastic display of Avon perfumes, tiny ceramic pitchers and people, and her unmatched and always tidy collection of make-up.

Grandpa used to jokingly imitate her answering the phone saying, “Hello, this is Beth,” in THE most feminine voice you can imagine.

I loved her so. I often have thought about what it was that made me love her as much as I did, and I think part of it was because she was purposeful in spending time with us. We spent a week at her house each summer, and she would play board games with us kids for hours. She and our grandpa took us to the beach, to Six Flags, to the zoo, to movies, and thrift store shopping. From MawMaw (another name that we called her) I learned the fine art that is bargain hunting.

She used to write me letters, and I would write her back. I kept all of them. I’d love to come across those! She kept my letters too, so I also have those now.

She knew how to get along well with people. She was accepting.

Oh! And did I mention her vast collection of books! Well, obviously, she spoke the language of my heart! There were even times when she owned little book stores, but always there was her downstairs library, wall to wall with books. And scrapbooks! I think we counted about 198 scrapbooks.

At 4 foot 10, or was it 11, I hate how memories fade, she was the first grown-up that any of us kids caught up to.

The year she died was the same year that she announced to us that she had breast cancer, but by then, she’d already had it for two years. She had kept it a secret. I cannot imagine how. I never could, but by the time we found out, it had already moved to her bones. She was eaten up with it. It was only a couple of months after she broke the cancer news to us that she was gone.

We spent that Christmas vacation a couple of hours from home, so Mom could be by her side. We slept at my aunt’s house. I still remember the overwhelming heart break of the visitation service the evening before the funeral.

I sat in a chair near the casket, sixteen years old, losing one of the pillars of my life. I couldn’t take my mind off all the people around me making small talk about the weather. I was suffocating in my thoughts, and I just wanted to make them all be quiet or go away. How could they talk so carelessly? I could barely breathe, and when I couldn’t take it another minute, I ran out to my parents’ minivan, climbed inside, closed the doors, and bawled alone.

I don’t know how any of them figured out that I was there, but one by one, my brother, my mother, and my father all came out and sat in the van with me.

And it turned into one of the sweetest, most comforting moments in my life. There is something about sharing grief with the people who know, who get it, who have lost as much as you have. There is something about it that bonds you like glue and heals hurts deep inside.

I remember saying that I just couldn’t get past the fact that they were going to bury her, my dear little grandma, into the ground. I could not stand the thought of her being put down there and covered with dirt.

“Oh, April. That’s just her body. That’s nothing to her. Her spirit is in Heaven. She is with God, and we will see her again. That’s just her body. Don’t worry about that.”

I don’t remember what else was said, but for some reason, in the midst of my very first great loss, these were the words that I needed to hear. Even more so, I needed the comfort of sitting in the van, just me and the three most important people in my life.

But I’m not going to share this heart-rending story with you, and leave you feeling sad. I would never do that. You know I wouldn’t.

Here is one of my favorite little passages from Beth’s book of poetry. It isn’t a poem. Just wise words from a much loved sinner turned saint.

MY SECRET FOR HAPPINESS

I have a secret for happiness I’d like to share with you.

When you awake in the morning, think of three things you are looking forward to. Remember life’s simple pleasures are often best. They don’t have to be big occasions.

When you retire at night, reflect on three good things about that day.

You’re sure to smile and be happy.               by BHK

Try her suggestion, I dare you.

The post My One of a Kind MawMaw and Her Secret for Happiness appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.