Homebound

It’s been a sad but good couple of days. Barely making it through the last verse of “Abide with Me” with my niece a boneless sack of potatoes in my arms; crying quietly as they lowered the casket into the ground and then choking down a laugh-cough as my nieces and nephews enthusiastically threw flowers in after it; accidentally making my father’s cousin cry when we talked about how you can see each of the Haas sisters in the faces of their families; my oldest nephew greeting my brother and his wife — as soon as they walked in the door — with a distinctly proud, “I puked on Friday!” (chorused by a litany of “puke puke puke puke puke” from his little brother, only just learning to talk and still trying out his words, and answered with a politely rising, “Ohh,” from my sister-in-law); arguing with my parents over whether my grandmother would have appreciated or been stiffly scandalized by all the jokes in the car on the drive to her funeral; watching my brother, standing alongside the other five pallbearers, cry after they bore the coffin to the graveside; sitting across the table from my oldest niece’s baby doll at lunchtime, staring at me unblinkingly as I ate; cleaning up hot chocolate and wiping away tears and laughing so hard as we traded old and new stories that we had to pull out the Kleenex box again.

Thanking  God we can weep in both joy and sorrow. Knowing that what has been robbed from us by dementia and now death has already been stolen back again. For I know where my Redeemer has taken my grandmother.

Home.


Word Count Report: Another half page of handwritten notes last night, and another couple of sentences just a few minutes ago.

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4 Responses to Homebound

  1. Aunt Karen says:

    Yes! Home. Free. Perfect.

  2. Your Local Friendly IT Guy says:

    You tried to get me going again.

    Also, you forgot the part about sitting across from the doll because you were NOT allowed to sit in the doll’s spot. 😉

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