Written Wednesday, January 29, 2020
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My husband's mom passed away this evening. The last of his parents gone from this earth and into the presence of Jesus. She is home now after 88 years of living life...marrying a man of faith, raising four boys, and cooking for multitudes with a generous heart.
Though her home was small and modest in nature, her front door swung open easily to frequent guests and her table never failed to boast an abundance of delicious food. Cooking was how she expressed her love. I'll never forget the many meals she supplied after the birth of each of our daughters and the cakes she would bring us while building our homes. She taught me many things about hosting and entertaining and I even got her to write down a few of the numerous recipes she effortlessly cooked from memory. Her lasagna is world renown--at least in my home.
She was goofy at heart and liked the kind of humor that involved fake crooked teeth and silly hats. She also liked music. Though she had an ordinary singing voice herself, she would often hum old hymns and loved it when the family sat around singing together--at Christmas or birthday parties or even around a campfire. She didn't mind putting you on the spot to sing a solo in the middle of a song either. It was her way of including you, even if you were dying of embarrassment.
Her hobbies were few. When she wasn't entertaining or cooking for hundreds at church, she liked to sit--usually with coffee in hand--by a lake or a window or simply at the mall watching people.
She was wise about growing older-she knew when it was time to give up driving without anyone having to tell her and she moved herself into senior living when the rest of us wondered if it was too soon--it wasn't.
It was hard watching her succumb to arthritis and seeing her mobility decline--harder still when her memory began to slip. But she fulfilled her appointed days on this earth and left her imprint on our lives in the process. I knew her for decades--my husband for his entire life. Tonight her passing has made the ground shift a bit beneath our feet. We will need to regain our footing with grief-stricken legs and hurting hearts. But we will do that by looking to the same God that she looked to faithfully and we will thank Him for having blessed us with this wonderful woman.