She Was Her Middle Name

After receiving the news of our Loss, and hanging up the phone, it was hard to know what the next step should be. There were so many things to consider; so many questions to ask about and most especially because the one person I wanted to ask about them, was her. 

So I pulled on the necessary layers, locked up the house and made my way upward. To the cliffs. Past the Tate, around the bend, and on in through the gate to the Churchyard. Back home such a place would be referred to as a graveyard, but I like the term Churchyard best. It reminds one of a time when more people associated death with Life, and were reminded of it each time they saw the stones. 

It was a lovely day, with both sunshine and shadow flooding the stones. Birds circled noisily above as if ordering me to go away. But I didn't. There was a tryst to keep.

"Sacred to the memory of.." "..In loving memory of.." I read, seeing the details of someone who had been loved and was now being remembered. Most of these gravestones were ancient, far older than anything we might see back home. But whether old or new, loved ones of both countries have gone to great lengths to be sure the person they had loved was not forgotten. 

She was my husband's mother. Because of this, I was given the chance to love her and to be loved back. I was incredibly blessed by this. She had always wanted a daughter, and now, she said, she 'had one!' 

She made me dresses. She bought me sweaters and shoes, just because she wanted to and saw things she thought would look pretty. I married her son almost 38 years ago, and her joy in giving never waned.

I write about her here because I can't help it - she was so large a part of our lives, and her spot now stands empty. She had read these blogposts every day since they started, and then shared them with everyone she could think of. It was the absolute sweetest thing.

And I won't forget the most important thing, dear Readers - the thing she spoke of most often and passed on to her children. The joy of her Christian faith. She said recently that she did not fear death, because she was going to Jesus. Heaven would be no strange place, for her. She would be 'going Home'.

So when we think of her, when we see her photographs as a young girl, as a new mother, as a happy grandmother, and as a blessed great grandmother, we will always think of Joy.

And that was her middle name.


See you along the Way!
the SconeLady