Today is the funeral of my sweet neighbor lady. Wednesday night her children were about to leave the hospital for the night and talked to her saying, “ Mom if you need to go, then go. Don’t hold on for us.” They barely made it back to the house and the phone was ringing with the call from the hospital.
I took a cake over to them and was able to talk with her kids a little while. Her son looks just like the Christian author, Max Lucado. Well, I guess that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, I know her son is a saved man and asked him if he could tell me if she had a relationship with the Lord. He believed that she had gotten saved at some time, but she just seemed to get more and more negative with age. The hurts in her life made her question the goodness of God. He even mentioned having very pointed conversations with her about it.
So, today we say goodbye to Mrs. Trout. I’m so going to miss visiting with her. It’s a filling experience to get to know older people beyond their frailness. To see where they came from and who they were in their prime. It’s so easy to just look at a little frail older lady and see this generic sweet demure, person. Then, when you dive in and hear their story you see this strong, spunky, full-of-life woman; a woman who was a journalist in her youth and had traveled the world with her husband. A woman who had been hurt deeply when her brother, and only sibling, was shot down in WWII. A woman who had agreed to live in her father-in-law’s funeral home when she was first married, but didn’t enjoy cleaning all of the bathrooms or having to keep her babies quiet. And one last mystery I never found out, a woman whose name was Joel. Now -a -days we hear unusual names all of the time, but for her generation, I found this an interesting name.
I’m Thankful to her son, Bill and her daughter, Elodie for allowing me the privilage of checking in with her since they live out of town. They are such a nice family and came every weekend to care for their mother. I pray I can have the opportunity to show as much care to my own parents when they get older. I also pray for their comfort at this time.
Her family is keeping the house for a little while, and asked us to keep an eye on things. The first thing I’m going to do come February is go over to her yard and get some branch cuttings from her forsythia bushes and force them in my livingroom. Every spring her beautiful yellow forsyhtia’s are the first news bearers of the new season and new life. (My mom’s always been sentimental about flowers and who gave them to her. I guess she passed it on to me). Anyway, this will be my loving tribute to my dear Mrs. Trout.
2ndmanswife 