Heaven

On the 19th of March, my Grandma Erickson passed away. She was 94 years old and went quickly. She was still smart as a whip and was living on her own, in fact she was making beans when she died. She always said she wanted Jesus to take her quickly and I believe He did. She had 13 children, 43 grandchildren and my baby is her 87th great grandchild.

When she made out her will she stated something about heirs and that any great grandchild 120 days or older in the womb was to be counted. That was so special, she had no idea that when she passed, she would have a granddaughter with a baby that was 126 days old in the womb. It has nothing to do with earthly possessions, it was just the point that God knew it would matter and laid it on her heart to include that in her will.

We have been trying to explain this concept to Cayden and it has been interesting. In February our cat Willis died (he lived with my parents) and we were able to explain a little about death at that time. So he had a bit of a foundation when we told him about his Great Grandma Doris. Once when we passed her house he said, "that's where Great Grandma Doris lived, but she doesn't anymore, because she died." I said he was right and that she lived in heaven now. He wanted to know how to get to heaven and his idea was he could jump really high and fly up to it. We still have a bit of work cut out for us:) It is hard to explain such a difficult subject in 2-3 year old terms.

I was always worried about what would happen when grandma died-for many reasons. One reason was there are 12 living children that need to make decisions and problems can arise with only 2 children. I was very blessed to watch parts of the funeral decision making process and my aunts and uncles came along side each other in such a special/loving way.

I will continue to pray that God's love would ultimately shine through the remainder of the process and I would appreciate your prayers as well. When emotions are involved some people can forget they are a testimony to those around them and I would hate for any relationships to be hurt through the rest of the process. I know I will be watching to see how things play out and I am only 1 of 40 living grandchildren-think of the impact my 12 aunts and uncles (including my dad) have on younger eyes that are watching how this all plays out. May God be glorified through the process!

Another reason I was worried about grandma passing is because her house was literally grand central station. Need to use the bathroom or phone while in town, no problem-stop at grandmas give her a hug and off you go again. Bored and want to find something to do, again, no problem--stop at grandmas and visit with her, chances are aunts/uncles and or cousins will stop up also looking for something to do. "Worst case scenario" you'd have great bonding time with grandma and learn more about her or get to watch a good movie with her.

I'm afraid this tradition will stop, at first I thought an aunt or uncle should move up there and keep it going, but who in the world besides a very loving grandmother would want people coming and going all day long, unannounced, and quite often leaving a bad smell behind:)

The day after the funeral a few of us got together and had a sweet time of prayer in her house. It was a nice way of having closure, her house will no longer be a meeting place, but I will always have such sweet sweet memories of all the time spent up there. Shortly before Grandma's passing I underlined this excerpt from my bible study: "..the life of a Christian is never about sameness. It's always about change. That's why we must learn to survive and once again thrive when change involves heartbreaking loss. We're being conformed to the image of Christ."