Ready....Set....

 We are in full-blown birthday prep mode here this week.  Carter was SUPER excited to help me color the Yoda we are using for "Pin the Lightsaber on Yoda" on Saturday.  Derrick has been busy every night adding layer after layer to his homemade pinata...which will be a Death Star Pinata (of course).  Can't wait for Saturday!!!

May the Force be with you...

Yoda, Obi Wan, Clone Trooper and Darth Vader

 OK, so I guess this is a bit of a Halloween spoiler, but I can't resist.  We did a Halloween test run tonight and I think we are good to go for candy night.  Our wonderful friends send this awesome Darth Vader costume in the mail and Reese, upon seeing it, immediately decided she did not in fact want to be Wonder Woman for Halloween...now she wants to be Darth Vader...with sparkly pink shoes, nonetheless!  I am told I have to dress as Princess Leia...we'll see if that happens.

The Fall Photo Shoot...

 The kids picked a little cantaloupe from the garden yesterday. They were so excited about it, they wanted to keep checking on it to see if it was ripe yet.  Conversation to follow:

C: Let's go check on the Cantaloupe Reese.  Maybe he's ready to eat!
R: YAY!
Me: Oh is it a boy, how can you tell?
C: Yes...well...no, it's a girl.
Me: Oh really, why?
C: Because it has babies!
(He then holds up two little golf ball sized cantaloupes picked from the same vine)

When time runs out...

I promise this will be the last post where I dwell on human mortality for a while...but with so many things fresh on my mind, there are a few more thoughts I wanted to share.

First, I was just so struck by the number of strange little "coincidences" that kept happening last week, things that are just a little too unlikely for me to chalk them up completely to chance.  First it was the song that came into my head on Monday, then a story my mom told of the night they were driving back (Monday) to try to see Grandmom one last time and seeing a larger, brighter meteor than they had ever seen shoot right across the sky in from of them.  On Tuesday it was a little girl I noticed who was playing a button game. (Found this link and this one to describe it.)  When I stopped to look more closely it was a huge button that was strung on a piece of yarn...exactly the way Grandmom had done it so many years ago.  I have NEVER seen anyone else do that before.

Picking apples on our way to NJ

When we stopped at a rest stop on our trip home yesterday, the woman who took my order for French Fries was named Ruth.

This morning I pulled out another letter from Grandmom, dated 2001 and she was specifically talking about a time when I was about 4 and she was singing me the old hymns.

I was thinking yesterday...how would we live our lives differently if we knew exactly when we would die? What if you walked around with a clock on your chest that was ticking down the time you had left to live?  I am sure we'd be a lot more purposeful with how we spent our time, and who we spent it with.  I'm sure we would be quicker to forgive, quicker to show mercy, more patient...but really, what does it matter how long we have?  Not knowing when the end is should actually spur us on to live even more purposefully. This scene from the movie, "The Shawshank Redemption" sticks in my mind. "Get busy living or get busy dying," is the quote I love towards the end of the clip.

I want to get busy living and this past weekend has, if anything, given me a renewed vigor to make my life really count, to make it mean something.  I can only hope that people will remember me, when my time comes, they way they remember Grandmom.

The Long Road Home...my memoir of Grandmom Reif (Nov 29, 1919 ~ October 14, 2013)

My statement from the funeral service of Ruth Reif on October 19th, 2013:

On Christmas Eve night in 1991 I sat in on the couch Grandmom and Pop Pop’s basement with a small and unassuming package on my lap.  Tearing off the paper, I found a simple pink Bible, one to replace the youth version I had been using up till then.  “Start by reading John,” she had told me, “and try to record all of the ‘I am’s’ that you find.”  “I am the bread of Life.”  “I am the Light of the World.”  “I am the Good Shepherd.”  “I am the way and the truth and the life.”  Little did I know how meaningful this gift would be in my life.

A legacy is something that is handed down from one generation to the next.  And as we gather today to remember Grandmom, I want us to ponder what her legacy was.  She would not have wanted us to remember her as a "nice lady" or a "kind person" or a "wonderful caretaker".  No I think there was something much more profound she hoped to leave behind.  Grandmom was a woman of faith if there ever was one.  It was the core of her being, the thing she treasured up more than anything else on this earth.  God's Word was her anchor and it was her mission to share it with everyone she encountered along life's journey.

There are SO many memories I could share about Grandmom, our "Annie"...fun things we did at her house as children, eating her flying pancakes, butter creams, buttered toast, or liverwurst sandwiches!!.  I remember playing on the tire swing or in the big blue ball, dressing up to do our annual Christmas pageant in her basement, vacationing at the beach together.  Sitting at her kitchen table on many a quiet afternoon talking with her about God or other questions I was struggling with.  But the legacy she left in my life that is most profound is that of her faith.  And one way she did that was by singing songs to me as a child as she rocked me in her big rocking chair.  Whenever I hear one of those old hymns, even to this day, I immediately can recognize it as one of the ones that Grandmom sang to me.  Some, I haven't heard in decades, but the memories come flooding back whenever I hear one.  This past Monday afternoon as I was preparing dinner for my family, a tune popped into my head...I kept running over it again and again without really thinking about it much.  About an hour later, Mom called me to tell me that Grandmom wasn't doing well.  It was only after I hung up the phone that it struck me...that tune was the song, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Sweetest Name I Know." and it was one of the songs she sang to me on that rocking chair.  It is an old song and one I surely haven't heard or even thought about in decades.  I know that God sent me that song from Grandmom on Monday.  And I knew then that her time was close. 

A passage that came to mind, which I shared with her two years ago when she was in the hospital was Philippians 3:12-14 “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Grandmom knew that this life was all just a journey to a much better place…the long road home.

Grandmom loved the Lord and she loved her fellow man.  She loved with a selfless kind of love that never expected anything in return.  I would be willing to bet that every person in this room at one time received a letter from her, if not dozens.  I wonder how many letters she received back in return, but it made no matter...she kept on writing and praying for as long as she was able.  Even decades back, I started saving the letters she wrote to me.  I always knew there was something special about them, long before she was growing old.  She ended many of those letters by telling me that she prayed for me every single day.  And I know that she did.  There are many memories of Grandmom that I will carry in my heart for the rest of my days.  But I will cherish most the faith that she passed on to me through her songs and letters and the reminder that prayer is an essential part of the Christian life.  One letter from 2004, I happened to pull out and re-read the other night, closed like this, "I continue to pray for both you and Derrick, of course, to old Grandmom here, nothing, no nothing can please me more than to know you both belong to the Lord.  Yes, one of these days the whole family will meet in Heaven - Joy, Joy, Joy."..

Profound (or not so much) thoughts for the day...

Reese: I do NOT like Frankenstein!
Carter: Why?
Reese: He's a boy!

Me: Reese, do you really think that's a good idea to dump out that board game in the middle of the floor when we are trying to clean up dinner?
Reese: You can just walk around it.

A day of remembering a life well-lived...

 We chose to enjoy the beautiful weather today by taking a trip to the zoo.  It was a most bittersweet day today, celebrating Grandmom's graduation from this earth into an eternity in Heaven.  I am so thankful to God for His faithfulness, for His promises, for the assurance I have, knowing she is no longer in pain, no longer suffering from an aged and imperfect body and mind.  We will miss her terribly, but I know that she would want us to move forward now, to live life, and live it to the fullest.

 Hers was a life well-lived.  I cannot think of her without remembering something she taught me...either by words or action...about living life to the fullest. You could not be around her for long without feeling love.  She had so much love to give and gave it so freely to so many people.  What a joy it will be to see her again in Heaven someday.

 Tonight was our tour of WPXI with Stephen Cropper and it was really amazing.  We saw the helicopter take off to start off the trip. Got a tour of the newsroom and then the weather center.  We even got to sit and watch them film for the nightly news and met David Johnson also.  What an amazing opportunity.

 Carter did such a good job and I was so proud of him.  He shook the weatherman's hand and even asked him a question, "What was the baddest weather you ever saw?"  So sweet!  (The answer was a tornado and the big snowstorm that shut down Pittsburgh three years back)