A Thousand Good Byes

“ The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”  

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” 

...I ponder these quotes from Thornton Wilder's Our Town as we say a thousand goodbyes. If we are more truly alive when living in gratefulness for the present moment, then Gramma was both our treasure and our example. Even as she languished during her last days, Gramma was conscious of her treasures--us,her family. "Can I get you anything, honey? Are you warm enough?" she would inquire with eyes closed but heart attuned to others. She was awake to her Savior. She was alive inside treasuring the strains of Abide With Me when she asked me to move the speaker closer to her "good ear" and moved her lips to the words of Psalm 91 that I read aloud. 

“Let's really look at one another!...It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize all that was going on and we never noticed... Wait! One more look. Good-bye, Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up."

Thornton Wilder, Our Town

...goodbye to ancestral landmarks...to Mamaw's birthplace, to the house where Papaw was born, to remains of the the one-room school house...

Good bye to the farm where Gramma grew up and to the one just down-the-road-a-piece where Granpa lived as a boy...

Good bye to the drafty house where Gramma & Granpa went to housekeeping and planted little sapling trees out front...to the church where they were baptized, confirmed and worshipped for decades...to the house they built where they reared their family, baked pies, planted a garden, and dispensed dozens of donuts to grandchildren...

Good bye to favorite haunts and hang-outs and the old church yard...

Good bye dear, sweet, grateful, treasured Gramma...

"Oh, earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?" 

― Thornton Wilder, Our Town

Proverbs 4:      18But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,

            That shines brighter and brighter until the full day.

                        

Psalm 145

3 Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised,
And His greatness is unsearchable.
4 4 One generation shall praise Your works to another,
And shall declare Your mighty acts.

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Psalm 102

Psalm 102

18 This will be written for the generation to come,
That a people yet to be created may praise the Lord.

23-28 Your years are throughout all generations.

25 “Of old You founded the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
26 “Even they will perish, but You endure;
And all of them will wear out like a garment;
Like clothing You will change them and they will be changed.
27 “But You are the same,
And Your years will not come to an end.
28 “The children of Your servants will continue,
And their descendants will be established before You.”

2  say, “O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days,Your years are throughout all generations.

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