{"id":78,"date":"2013-02-06T12:48:39","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T17:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/?p=78"},"modified":"2013-02-06T12:48:09","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T17:48:09","slug":"death-the-final-transition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/death-the-final-transition\/","title":{"rendered":"Death … the final transition"},"content":{"rendered":"

My grandma died last Wednesday. \u00a0In that moment, I said goodbye to an entire generation. \u00a0She was my last living grandparent.<\/p>\n

I like to remember the times she’d visit us in South Carolina and later in Virginia. \u00a0We’d sit around the dining room table and play game after game of Rummicub. \u00a0Grandma didn’t talk a lot; but when she did, her dry humor sent us into gales of laughter. \u00a0When my parents spent two and a half weeks in Europe, she and my aunt, Barbara, came to stay with us. \u00a0In between enduring “the chipmunks” at the loudest volume possible on the tape player and every manner of girl activity, they quilted on a huge quilt frame in the living room.<\/p>\n

I remember visiting her in Florida one year and being enamored with her three wheeled bike.<\/p>\n

She was fiercely independent, humble, yet slightly stubborn. \u00a0But my favorite memory of her is the way she would suddenly smile in the middle of a conversation, her face creasing into a dozen more happy crinkles. \u00a0\"may<\/a><\/p>\n

I can’t imagine how happy she must be today, finally with Jesus the way she longed to be for so many of the past months.<\/p>\n

We spent the weekend in Ohio to celebrate her life and mourn her passing. \u00a0I watched the long line of friends and family who came to offer their condolences and once again, I reflected on the beauty that is part of death. \u00a0I’ve witnessed a few deaths over the years, most of them in the intensive care unit where I worked. \u00a0There is something sacred and indescribable about standing witness when the death angel flings back the curtain between life and eternity for a soul. \u00a0Through my tears at Grandma’s funeral, I realized beauty exists in that same hushed disguise as families go through the last rite of passage for a loved one.<\/p>\n

It was hidden in the hundreds of friends who knew and loved grandma and who stood in line for a long time to tell her sons and daughters how much they appreciated her.<\/p>\n

Raw beauty exuded in the eloquent words of my uncle Ervin’s tribute about Grandma’s life. \u00a0It reverberated through his words about her longing to see Jesus and the way she expressed her deep, deep longing to know that all her children and grandchildren would join her there.<\/p>\n

It whispered through the cold as tiny white snowflakes slowly decorated the hair and coats of family members in front of me as we slowly followed the pall bearers to Grandma’s final resting place.<\/p>\n

It wrapped it’s arms around us as family members took turns hand-filling the grave with dirt, a graceful cadence of shovels handled with dignity and honor while songs of heaven and worship muffled the thud of dirt. \u00a0It showed itself in friends who drove seven hours one way on snowy roads to attend a funeral service for someone they’d never met because they love and care about my mom losing hers.<\/p>\n

It sparkled later that night in a room overflowing with family members who shared laughter, reminisced over pictures, wrote thank you notes to those who helped over the time of Grandma’s death, and celebrated the opportunity to be together. \u00a0“A funeral is a person’s last gift to friends and family,” my mom has said, “the gift of being together.” \u00a0What a gift grandma gave us.<\/p>\n

\"September<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\"may<\/a><\/p>\n

\"flip<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0\"may<\/p>\n

Beauty isn’t found in perfection or only in the absence of pain. \u00a0Beauty is found in things that perfectly reflect the Father heart of God. \u00a0What could be more beautiful than a life well-lived and well-loved?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My grandma died last Wednesday. \u00a0In that moment, I said goodbye to an entire generation. \u00a0She was my last living grandparent. I like to remember the times she’d visit us… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39ynQ-1g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.michellebeachy.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}