Celebrating a Life Well Lived

I spent this weekend in Hartsville, South Carolina, honoring the life of my paternal grandmother. When I told someone today that that's where I was yesterday, she said in surprise that I hadn't mentioned that my grandma died. And that's true. I hadn't told many people because it was hard for me to explain my calmness about her death. Believe me, I know what it is to feel grief at the death of a loved one. My mother died when she was 57 and I was 31. That was devastating. My grandfather died several years ago. That was sad because, although physically he had been declining for several years, I knew how much my grandma would miss him. But this weekend had none of those feelings. It was a celebration of a good life that ended gently and calmly--just what we all would want.

As I listened to my dad, his sister and brothers talk about their mother at the funeral I was struck again by how blessed my life has been. My grandmother was born to a very poor family in rural South Carolina in 1917. When she was a teenager her father died, and before she was 16 she married my grandfather, who was equally poor and 21. Neither of my grandparents went to high school. Both came from families that were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and I am grateful that for whatever reason they made the gospel of Jesus Christ the center of their lives. I can't imagine how hard they worked during their lives to get from where they started to where they ended.


One of the things I learned this weekend was that their house on their farm--the original four rooms, anyway--were built entirely from salvaged materials. My grandpa and three of his friends bid on an industrial building that wasn't in use anymore, and they took it entirely apart so that they could use the materials themselves. My grandfather worked as a machinist at a local factory and farmed his land in his "spare" time.

My aunt told at the funeral of how hard my grandma worked to take care of her 7 children. She told of clothes made from flour sacks and of picking cotton in the fields. My grandma may not have had much education herself, but she encouraged her children to get as much education as they could. One of her sons went on to get a PhD and three to be chiropractors.

My grandma left behind quite a legacy. Seven children, fourty-five grandchildren, most of them active in the church and raising families of their own. What an accomplishment; one that young 15 year old girl could not have imagined.

Way to go, Grandma.