SATURDAY! I can go visit! We have been hoping for a new thing to bounce off the walls and hit us all at once, but then, nothing. Nothing at all happened until today.
Today, the nursing home called to say, “she passed at 7:30 a.m. quietly.”
She was the first older woman in my life I had the privilege to know who was not a backstabbing, gossipy, lier, other than my mom. She could get mad as fire in a wood burning stove at you over leaving her car running too long, or yell obscenities at you for doing stupid stuff, then turn around and treat you as if nothing had happened to make her mad in the first place. She would give till her pockets were empty, and go to the bank and withdraw money to give till she had nothing left to give. She was generously giving to those she loved and those she didn’t care for.
She would call, talk on the phone for hours to me, then say, “has it been that long? Oh, my, call me when you can, so you call do all the talking.” She was funny, but dry in her humor. If you told her a joke, she waited until you explained the punchline before she giggled like a little girl. She loved my husband like he was her son and invited us to stay at her house when we traveled north. She commissioned me to design, make and quilt her a bedspread quilt from fabric from a bedspread her husband had bought her before he died. I took that bedspread apart and used the top for the back of the quilt so it fit her bed perfectly. She bought all the fabric to make the top which I designed, cut, pieced and quilted. It was beautiful.
Now, she is home with Jesus and I’m going to miss her a lot. We talked twice a week for the last two years because neither of us could drive the long distance between our homes.
That last Saturday that I spoke to her, before the Monday she had the stroke, still plays in my head. She wanted to know what we had been doing all day that had caused it to be late for me calling her. I told her we had gone out to eat at a place we had never gone to before. She wanted a detailed description of where, when, what, how we spent the day. We talked for two hours. Near the end of our conversation, she said, “I’m tired, so tired. I wish Jesus would come get me and take me home.” I said, “be careful what you wish for, old girl. But then again, He could come in the rapture at any moment….and we could all go home together.” She laughed, I laughed…we continued to talk till my husband intrupted us with a phone call. He is disabled and uses the phone to call me when he needs help. I told her he was calling me so I had to go. She said, give him big hug and kiss, love you! ….will call you Wednesday as always. We hung up not knowing this was our last conversation with each other. People never think about how short life really is, until its about over. She was 86 years old, and in good health we all thought.
RIP my dear sister-n-law. Jesus has you home and you can rest now.
Dreaming with J&J 