An Old Grandpa Lives Here w/ the Love of His Life

The funeral for my parents would be held on Thursday morning, with the doors opened to family at 9:30 a.m., the viewing at 10, and the funeral at 11. My husband had the good idea that we should come down the afternoon before, get some takeout food, walk to a local waterfall, and spend the night at my parents' house. In the morning, the drive to the church would only be about 10 minutes, not an hour and a half. So that is what we did.

We stopped along the Juniata River below Lewistown, where we saw a cormorant arrive, splashing, and dive deep down under the water. We split a hoagie at Sal's in McAlisterville (the bread was still warm!), grabbed a takeout chef salad for later, and headed for the camp my dad and brother belong to. We parked the car there and walked to the falls, which you may see in the extras.

We had plenty of time, and for once, we had the place to ourselves, so we lingered for a few hours, then walked back to the camp and split our chef salad; we sat eating it on a picnic table on the porch. As the angle of the light shifted, we headed for my parents' house, where we unpacked all of the stuff we'd brought, and sort of moved in.

It took some airing out, but we'd brought our own full-sized fan (thank goodness for big American cars!) and incense, as the place smelled kind of stuffy. When we were done unpacking, I sat on the couch and just looked around, like a startled bug that had crawled out from under a rock. "It's nice enough," I said to my husband, "But doesn't it seem like SOMETHING IS MISSING?" Yeah, it was the two old folks, sitting holding hands on the love seat!

My little sister had made plans with me ahead of time: we had each selected a bunch of favorite family photos featuring mostly Mom and Dad and us six kids, and she'd printed quite a few out. Our plan for an hour or two in the evening was to sort through the photos and put the best ones on a photo board that would be displayed at their funeral.

So it was that my little sister Julie, my niece Kaylee, and I sat on the floor, sorting through photos. We started at the top of the board and worked our way down. The very first photo my little sister selected was the one at the top center of a sign that hung on their wall for the past quite a few years:

An old Grandpa lives here with the love of his life.

From there, we built it out, starting at the top with just photos of the two of them. A few of those pictures, you've seen on these pages because I took them! In the middle, just below that, we put some of the more full family groups, and some of the older shots.

Then we just filled in the rest. At the very bottom left is a shot of Dad on the front porch, as he frequently greeted us there and said his farewells there. At the bottom right is Mom waving good-bye from the living room window: this was always the last sweet view I had of my mother as we left there after a visit.

We did not cry as we did this task, but rather we simply enjoyed the photos and memories, often holding one up for the others to look at. Every once in a while, we'd stop and go through the family names, in order, making sure that everybody was represented. 

By about 8 or 8:30, we were done, and sitting eating Klondike bars in the living room, admiring our handiwork. As a friend of mine remarked when I posted a photo on Facebook, there isn’t a board big enough for all of the love these two had for each other, and all of the lives created from it. But we did our very best!

I'll tell you in tomorrow's posting all about the funeral, which was filled with love and light. But for now, on the day prior, here are my two photos: the woods and waters of my childhood, where I went for healing, and the photo board, made with so much love that I hope it practically shines!

Since I have two photos, here are two songs. One is for the photo above. I must tell you that that old Grandpa and the love of his life have a brand new address now: they're living in a cottage at the edge of the woods in Heaven! So here are the Wailin' Jennys, with Heaven When We're Home. 

The second is for the waterfall in the extras, which is a local treasure I've been able to walk to since I could put two feet together. Our song is and was a favorite of my parents, who adored Don Williams, and especially his love songs, which seemed to capture so well how they felt about each other. Here is Don Williams, with 'Till the Rivers All Run Dry. A few of the lyrics are included below.

'Till the rivers all run dry
'Till the sun falls from the sky
'Till life on earth is through
I'll be needing you