Wednesday, January 12, 2011

The Loss of a Loved One

Today is a very sad day for my family. My Great Grandmother died peacefully at the age of 96. People's first thought of hearing that your Great Grandma passed is that she lives in another state and you probably haven't seen her since the last family reunion in 1997. Fortunately, my Great Grandmother lived 6 miles from my home and had always been a very important part of my life. One of the biggest blessings is that she was able to meet and get to know my two 11.5 month old twin girls. We had spent numerous visits with her and she was always observing how much hair they have grown and pin pointing who would the the "feisty" one. I can vividly remember my daughters looking up at her and just staring into her eyes soaking up the limited time they had with her. I will always treasure those visits and she will definitely be missed.

This death is also the first time I have experienced a close death as a Christian. While this may not seem like a big deal, I feel that my perspective and feelings toward it are much different. When we visited with my Great Grandma on December 26th, she commented to me that she had heard something for the first time. That was a lot coming from someone who had spent 96 years on the earth. She said that she finally believes that she will see the other family members in heaven when she passes including her brother who passed away when he was 2 years old and her husband of 72 years. As a result of my faith and beliefs, I confirmed with her that heaven is an amazing place that we can not even being to fathom. There is no sickness, pain, hurt and you will see your loved ones walking hand in hand with God forever. I have no idea what truly convinced her but when we left she seemed almost giddy that she will soon see God and all the people who she truly missed. She even mentioned our conversation to my Grandma (her daughter) and my mother as well. And as I sit here writing this I know deep in my heart that she is looking down and saying, "Chris, you were right...this is amazing!


God of mercy, look kindly on Your servant Nanny who has set down the burden of her years. As she served You faithfully through out her life, may You give her the fullness of Your peace and joy. We give thanks for the long life of Nanny, now caught up in Your eternal love. We make our prayer in the Name of Jesus, Who is our risen Lord now and forever. Amen.



3 comments:

  1. Chris - We love you and are so proud of you! We are thankful for all the time we spent with Nanny and know she is smiling down on us from heaven. She was such a wonderful person!

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  2. I am so sorry for your loss. You just brought me to tears!! What an amazing story!

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  3. Sad you have lost Nanny, but you'll get to see her again. When we lost our son (8) a few years ago we found a group called Griefshare, a Christian based program to help get through it (you don't really get over it) and started it at our church. It is probably too early, but we all go at our own speed on this. One of my favorite quotes.. "Oh how we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again." -- Henry Scott Holland

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