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We arrived in the snow to take apart a house. She had lived there and one other home for her entire adult life, seventy some odd years, and in that time had gathered many, many things: Books, china, glassware, trinkets of all sizes, thousands of pictures. We came to cast lots and divvy up these things. Pack them up. Ship them home. Discard what remained.
Amidst this ceremony of dismantling, we paused for a moment to honor the woman. She was my wife’s grandmother, and even though I am an in-law, she was mine as well. She had lived her life devoted to the people assembled. She and her husband had loved them and, together, they had raised, in some fashion, the 50 people assembled in the living room. We were there to remember.
We began with a prayer and a poem. One of her sons read letters, humorous quips and insights from a life well lived. He concluded with her own words of taking apart a house twenty five years previously, and how there would have been no way to do it alone. Grandchildren told stories of how she and he had shepherded them in a motorhome, driving across the country to see the sites of our nation or just parking it in someone’s driveway for a visit. Adult children told stories of stern rebukes, some with words, others with steely blue eyes and stories of miracle births, temporary parent/ child battles, and permanent peace agreements. One son spoke of “Mother and…
