Last week Jeremy's mother, Isla, passed away. She had been in the hospital for three weeks following complications from surgery. To say that we will miss her would be an understatement. Her family brought her such joy and I am proud to count myself among her family. We loved her and will feel the hole she left behind until we meet again in Glory.
I want to write a tribute to her and celebrate her memory. I want this for myself, but more for my children who are still so young and will have a difficult time remembering these things about her. I want to share her legacy of faith with them. Mom did 30 minutes of devotions every morning. She highlighted and made notes in her bible that have been a comfort to us as we read through it. Mom was a prayer warrior, praying for each member of her family daily and specifically. She would ask me how a night went with Henry when he was struggling to sleep through the night due to his food allergies and when we would have a good one, she would say how glad she was, and that she had prayed extra hard about it the day before.
I always felt welcomed into her family. I started to call her mom on Jeremy and my wedding day. She always wanted a daughter, and I think that her granddaughters especially brought her that joy, but she had a soft spot for boys too!
Mom made flower arrangements and decorated houses for Christmas when her children were at home, but she found her true passion in work at Ditto Resale, where she volunteered about 30 hours a week since it opened. She enjoyed giving new life to donated items and that all proceeds went to support Christian education. She would take broken jewelry and old dusty flower arrangements home to restring or rearrange until they were ready to be put back to use. She often came home with something new to decorate the house that would then get redonated back to Ditto a while later when something else replaced it. She even traded out her good china for a different set that came in to Ditto that she liked better. She would find things throughout the year that she felt someone in her family would enjoy and would give them to us at Christmas, it was always fun to see what Ditto gifts she came up with, always with the caveat: if you don't like them, we will just bring them back to Ditto. Our kids loved to see what Grandma would bring them - every week when she came to babysit she would have something in a used gift bag for them. She brought stickers, window clings, paper to draw on, hair clips, headbands, mardi gras bead necklaces, birthday blowers, kazoos, whistles, stuffed animals, clothes, balloons, party hats and more. Leila loved to go and work at Ditto with Grandma, and spent many afternoons with her there.
In addition to working at Ditto, mom watched our kids once a week while I went to work. She and dad started when it was just Leila and kept it up as we added Stella and Henry to the mix. They came to our house and played with the kids here. One of their favorite things to do is spin the kids on the office chairs in the living room. The kids love it! Mom would patiently work with Leila on penmanship and all of the kids at coloring in the lines! I can't tell you how many times friends of theirs have told us how much she would beam when she told them stories about babysitting our children.
Mom had an unrivaled stuffed monkey collection for a while, they all sat on a ledge in a bedroom in their basement, her sense of decor told her not to display them in her living room, but I think she would have loved it. She donated all but a few to Ditto a while ago, but must not have been able to part with the last few. She also loved lighthouses. She had a love affair with leopard print. Check out how many of her clothes had leopard prints on them in the pictures below. Mom gave each of the grandkids a large animal print blanket the Christmas before they went to college. She would scour the stands at the Shipshewana flea market to find just the right one. Mom loved the Amish people, they took Jeremy on Amish country vacations as a child. She also read mostly Amish fiction books.
You never had to ask what mom really thought about something. She would always tell you to your face and maybe her friends too. She always told it like it is. This got her into trouble a time or two, but also provided a bit of entertainment from time to time.
Mom was very fussy about how things should be. Everything had a place and she was neat and tidy. There were a few times when I came home from work on a day that she was watching the kids to find that she could not help herself and had cleaned something in our house. Jeremy remembers her singing when she cleaned when he was little. She sang, "This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long. This is my story, this is my song. Praising my Savior all the day long." I am trying to add this song to our nightly bedtime routine with the kids.
The kids don't fully grasp what has happened yet. In the car tonight,
Stella:I didn't get to give grandma one more hug before she goed-ed.
Me: But you gave her lots of hugs before she went.
Stella: I wanted to give her one more kiss to tell her I love her.
Me: She knew you loved her, and she loved you.
A few years ago we celebrated mom and dad's 50th anniversary. Jeremy made a Top 10 List in honor of the occasion that was quite a hit as well as an insight into growing up with them, I am reprinting it below:
The Top Ten best things about having parents who are old enough to be your grandparents:
10. Standing up in my brother’s wedding – because I had just learned how to stand up!
9. Having my brothers complain about what a baby I was – probably because they had to change my diaper!
8. Having dad yell at my soccer coach in front of the whole team, because it was 4:30 and practice was running over into “dinner time”
7. Going to Russ’ on Saturday nights and getting the AARP discount
6. Learning the meanings of Dutch words such as zonich and feice
5. Taking lots of car rides to Nordlie’s flower shop in “Grand Rabbits”
4. Collecting Social Security because dad retired while I was in high school
3. Being introduced to the medical miracle that is barley green
2. Taking numerous road trips to see every young boy’s dream, the AMISH
And the number one best thing about having parents who are old enough to be your grandparents:
1. Learning to live on a low fat, low calorie, low salt, and low TASTE diet
We celebrated their 57th anniversary in the hospital this year. It was good to see the love that they shared through the years reflected in dad's dedication to spending most of his time at the hospital and their goodbyes each evening. Mom was 78, but she was a young 78. She always said having Jeremy kept her young and I would agree, we never would have thought we would be saying goodbye so soon. My biggest regret with mom's passing is that Leila, Stella, and Henry will miss the chance to know her long term, that I will not hear them say someday, "She was one of my biggest fans." the way their cousin Jenna said the other night, even though it will be true for them too, I am sure she is loving and cheering them on from Heaven.
Memories of Isla in pictures:
.....................................................................................................................................
Another tribute to Isla was written by her granddaughter, Jenna:
Mama's Comin'
About a half a year ago, my grandma gave me a few books and albums to look through—she’s one to keep record of everything. These albums had different recollections, pictures, records of certain happenings, and a letter. The letter is the important part, here—it was written to her own mother before she died about a decade ago. But, more on the letter later.
My grandma has lived a life, to say the least. She herself was sick to the point of death as a young adult, and she wasn't expected to live. But she did, and she and Grandpa brought three healthy boys into the world.
The youngest, however, didn't stay healthy. At the age of seven, he contracted an invasive brain tumor that would soon take his life. Both Grandma and Grandpa suffered immensely through this time, but they never lost their faith. And while God blessed them with another healthy boy some years later, I have often wondered if Grandma ever recovered from losing her son, my Uncle Vaughn.
How can you? How do you recover from losing a small child? This loss traveled with her for her whole life.
There’s a lot more I can share about my grandma, how I know her.
She prays for me every day.
She loves Jesus with all of her heart.
She is leopard-print and stuffed-monkey quirky.
She only cooks us food that all of the family can eat (which includes my allergic-to-everything adorable baby cousin).
She volunteers 30 hours a week at a resale shop that supports Christian education.
She most often calls me Jenna-binsky.
She has a way of walking…you just know it when you see it. Sometimes I unknowingly channel this energy.
She always wanted a daughter…instead she got four boys. As one of only a few granddaughters, she makes me feel special. (Even though I didn't get the curly hair she also always wanted in said daughters.)
She has a very classy friendship with fashion.
She’s not one to mess much with a mind-to-mouth filter.
She is not perfect. But she loves deeply and shares that often.
A few months ago I dropped by “the store,” where she volunteers her whole life away. An older male coworker walked by us and she whispered to me conspiratorially, “Jen, that man wouldn't like that you’re in seminary. He doesn't think women should be pastors.” She immediately called out his name and introduced me, saying, “[Name], this is my granddaughter Jenna. And in a couple months, she is going to be a full-fledged minister!” To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure she totally believes women should be pastors…but that never mattered to her. She would be my biggest supporter until the end.
Three weeks ago, young (well, age 78, it’s all relative), vivacious, feisty Isla went into the hospital for a routine, albeit, unexpected, surgery.
Today, she went to be with Jesus.
Today, I helped pick out clothes for her to wear when people say goodbye one last time.
Today, I feel a clinging shock and sadness I didn't think I’d have to face for years, at least.
So, the letter. In one of the albums Grandma gave to me six months ago there was a letter: it was to her own mother, on Mother’s Day at least a decade ago. She thanked her mother in the way children do…and at the very end of the letter, she added a side note. She knew her own mother wouldn't be around forever, and as a woman of faith she began to talk about heaven, and her own child, Vaughn, who was there already. This is what her final sentence said—
"And Mom, if you get there before I do…. Tell my boy, Mama's comin'."
Mama came, today. And as hard as this day has been for me, I know that in many ways this is the day that Isla has waited for since her own baby died all those years ago. She always knew heaven was her home, and not just because Vaughn was there, but because Jesus would be the one to take her.
I don’t know how to deal with the sadness and pain I feel when I think about the fact that I’ll never get to hug my grandma again on this earth, never see her funny faces or laugh at her unexpected comments.
I can’t even process that she won’t be able to see me graduate from seminary, get married, have children of my own…
But I also know this. She is now in a place that is the best she’s ever known, with the best God who brought her there, home. And I have to believe she’s being the best mama to the boy she didn't get a chance to be a mama to for very long the first time.
Isla Mae, I love you. God be with you until we meet again.
[2012, at Trinity graduation dinner…that candid look of love]
No comments:
Post a Comment