Grandchildren offer comfort during loss

Author’s note: My parents are “Granny and Poppa” to my son and to his three children. This letter is to those grandchildren about Monday’s memorial service for Granny.

My dear Katie, Claire and Andy,

You will read this letter to you sometime in the future, and you will better understand it even further into the future. But I want to remind you of the joy and the sadness we shared on Aug. 29, 2005, the day when we all said goodbye to Granny.

At 8 and 5 2/3 years of age, Katie and Claire, you showed very special sensitivity to your Poppa and to me at the memorial service. I will never forget, Katie, how you sat next to Poppa, your hand on his hand and your head against his arm. As you shared “tear tissues” with him, I felt a lump in my throat.

Claire, you sat between your grandma and me, soothing our sadness with your smiles and your touches. Your unconditional love for us sustained us in that hour, and it continues to do so.

Andy, at 2 years of age, you focused on what all 2-year-olds focus on – your own needs and wants. Your mother attended your needs in the nursery.

It made me wonder if my own mom had to attend me like that when I was 2.

While you will have little or no memory of this special day in our family’s life, I hope you will continue to learn from your sisters about compassion and tender presence when others hurt.

Katie and Claire, your wonderful sensitivity was clear from the first time we spoke on the phone after Granny died. Your words spoke deeply to me: “Grandpa, I’m sorry your mother died.” You honored my relationship with my mother, not simply yours with Granny.

I thought maybe your parents had coached you to say that. But I found out from your daddy that it was Katie’s choice of words. Claire, you mostly repeated what your older sister said, but I know you felt that sadness, too.

I will always remember how gentle you both were with Grandma and me.

Just as you were with Poppa when you saw him in a few days.

After the memorial service, Katie and Claire, you moved easily between being sad and being joyful. You met many people that day, some of whom knew you because they read the letters I write to you and Andy in the newspaper.

As typical of your ages, you also knew when it was time for you to focus on “fun” things, like watching cartoons in the nursery.

At the cemetery, you had more tears and a few questions. You were sad because we had to say goodbye to Granny there, but your curiosity about what we were doing was also clear. You asked about cremation, an act and idea strange to you.

I tried to explain how Granny and Poppa both chose to have their bodies cremated after they die. Cremation may sound yucky, but if left alone, bodies eventually would turn to ashes.

Burning a body speeds up that process and allows family members to place those ashes in a place where they can return for special visits.

In fact, Claire, I think it was you who said you wanted to visit Granny’s place of burial when you come to see us in Sandpoint. I promised you that when you wanted to, we would drive to Kellogg and visit Granny. And I’ll keep that promise. I will want to visit her also. And so will Poppa.

I don’t know how much of the memorial service you will remember, girls. We heard some beautiful songs about how God cares for people who are sad because someone has died.

We heard words spoken about how “there is a time for everything for every season and a time for every matter under heaven.” We remembered that God has created the world in a way that we all have a certain time to live and then we will die. This was Granny’s season to die, but only in body.

I believe death is very much like a new birth, so Granny has moved on to a new life. What happened to her spirit after her body finished its work is part of the wonderful mystery called death.

No one really knows what heaven is like, Katie, Claire and Andy. We all have some mental picture about heaven. But no one really knows.

That’s OK. Our faith in God tells us that when people we love die, their spirits live with God in a special way.

Our love for Granny will never die. That love lives in our hearts, and we will always share her love for us and ours for her with each other.

In your own sadness about her death, you make Granny’s love come alive.

Thank you so much, girls!

Grandpa Graves