Funerals are hard. They're even worse around the holidays.
My grandmother passed away over the weekend. This particular illness only lasted a few weeks, but her health had been declining in recent years. She was 94, and her body and her mind had not been her own for some time.
On Monday, the boys and I made our way across the state to say our good-byes. We traveled with my brother, Uncle Brian, and his son Austin (Kyndal was sick with the stomach bug and stayed home in bed).
The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree with my grandmother that funerals aren't necessary. She didn't want one. And she didn't have one, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Immediate family gathered together at the funeral home for a very brief viewing, immediate family made the procession to the cemetery for an even briefer service, and she was laid to rest next to other family members who have passed before her.
With three kids along, I spent most of my time keeping my twins at a safe distance from the others. Social skills are not their strong suit, and understanding sadness and solemness is not something they have just yet. Connor, though not fully understanding the event, was calm and quiet with Uncle Brian and Austin. I was not sorry to be otherwise occupied with the twins. It was a welcome distraction from a sad day. We stood at the edge, enjoying abnormally warm weather, the strong winds and watching the sun peak out from behind the fast-moving clouds. The cold and the rain stayed away this day.
This final chapter is not how I will remember my grandmother.
No. I will remember her as she was - strong and kind, selfless and devoted to her family. I will remember Sunday dinners around her table, her house filled with family every single weekend of my life (at least until I started a family of my own). I will remember holidays, when the house was packed from one end to the other with several generations and branches of the family. I will remember five-gallon jugs of lemonade and fresh strawberries and pot roast nearly every week, because she knew how much I liked it. I will remember sitting under the shade trees in her front yard, spending lazy Sunday afternoons surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins. I will remember her smile and her laugh and how she was always the center, the heart, of our family.
I will think of all the stories I remember being told. I will remember how she was up before the dawn every single day, making not one but two different breakfasts for her family - one for a son who worked first shift at a factory more than an hour away and one for the other children still at home. I will remember how much of the food, so lovingly prepared by her hands, also grew and was harvested by those same hands in their family fields. I will remember her drawer full of flour in the kitchen, for biscuits and baking and so many other goodies she made. I will remember how even as she got older and was attacked by a fox on her farm, how she grabbed a nearby tobacco stick and beat that fox to death. Yes, really.
I will remember her love, her spirit and her presence in my life. That's the grandmother I will always remember.