The phone rang in the middle of the night. Nana had passed away. Would I go with my mom to the nursing home? Of course I would.
Those moments in the nursing home that night were strangely familiar because I had sat there only the day before chatting with my mom over my Nana’s bedside. My mom cried and we even shared a few laughs. We took a few deep breaths and then headed for home.
After a restless and extremely short sleep, Elisha bounded into my room and landed on my bed like Tigger. I broke the news to him that his Nana had passed away during the night. We talked a little bit and then I tried to go back to sleep.
Then I finally dragged myself out of bed and loaded up on coffee as we started a family dialogue with all the boys that would last most of the day and on into the weeks that followed.
Moses and I sat on the couch and talked. He wanted to know all the details. He is the boy that loves all things medical, so it was very intriguing to him.
We talked about how the body would be moved from the nursing home to the funeral home. We talked briefly about the body being prepared for burial and he compared it to the Egyptians and how they prepared their bodies for burial.
He asked when we were having the party. He had misunderstood and thought we were throwing a party because she had died. We cleared that up by talking about how we were celebrating Nana’s life and not her death.
We all talked about how they would dress Nana and put her in a casket (like a bed in a box). We discussed how there would be a viewing and that he could see her again if they wanted to. We also gave them permission to reach out and touch her if they needed to.
We talked about the funeral, the tea, and the burial, we explained each thing in as much detail as we could and responded to each question along the way.
At the viewing the following week, the conversation went something like this:
Moses: Can I touch her?
Me: Yes, you can touch her.
Moses: Will it hurt her if i pull her hair?
Me: No, it won’t hurt, but please don’t do it.
Moses: What if i poke her?
Me: No, don’t poke her, please.
The following day at the funeral, all the kids behaved surprisingly well, and I was impressed. The older kids had another peak at nana when the casket was opened and then they were off to find the food.
The kids ate while the grown-ups reminisced. A little while later I was handed a tooth by Elisha and shortly after that I noticed all the cousins playing hide and seek. Keep in mind this is a funeral home.
Most of the grandchildren were able to ride with Grandma and Grandpa in the limousine on the way to the cemetery and their child-like innocence lightened the mood for all the passengers.
The graveside service was short, but unfortunately I had not adequately prepared the children on proper graveside decorum. Grandma was trying to give Malachi flowers from his Nana’s bouquet and he kept putting them on nearby tombstones. I was terrified that he would fall into the grave when he walked very closely around the edge trying to balance while getting flower after flower.
Listening to all the things that were said at my Nana’s funeral that day, made us realize there was so much that we didn’t know about her. Now, we will never get a chance to discover all those mysteries for ourselves.
I was thinking today about a line from an old Amy Grant song, “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone…”
I guess we didn’t really know the treasure that we had in my Nana until she was gone.
What are you waiting for, go hug your Nana.
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