Flowers for a Mother and Grandma Who Loved Flowers

 As I came in the door of Springs Funeral Services last Thursday for the viewing for Jonathan's mother, I was bringing more flowers sent from my extended family.

"There are so many flowers that there aren't enough stands for them," the funeral director admitted.

So I simply placed them on the platform area near the other flowers. (The funeral home is a remodeled space that used to be used as a church.)

Earlier that day my daughter Crystal, who had arrived with my brother Fain and his wife Regina and daughter Candace, was helping in the kitchen, along with the others. Carrie was pulling elk meat off of bones for elk burritos to take hunting later in the weekend,  

while Regina washed tons of dishes and Candace helped with making pumpkin rolls and deviled eggs for the funeral meal.

 

It was the first time I was part of the family at a viewing. So many kind people came, even other children and young people so that our children didn't have to spend the whole time just being sad. 

I had never personally experienced the blessing of flowers at a funeral before (just admired them at others' funerals). Not only is it comforting and touching to see how many people valued the departed and his or her family, but flowers make conversation pieces to people who don't know what to say, or to the family who is just there grieving and trying not to cry. At the end of the viewing, we were all taking note of who sent which flowers, taking pictures, and feeling thankful for so many friends who cared so much as to send flowers! We knew they aren't cheap.

I happened to be standing behind Daddy Lucas and Jonathan and caught this picture just after Daddy was sharing about which Scriptures he had picked for Mama's funeral Scriptures for the next day.

Like the one about nothing, (not even c o v i d), can separate us from the love of Christ. 

The above bouquet is from a church in Far North, Alaska, where Jonathan's parents have visited and made friends.  

This one is from Daniel and Elaine Bump, who used to be very close friends with Jonathan's parents when they lived here in Colorado.

Daddy Lucas says that every morning he would wake up and say, "Good morning, Sweetie Pie," to Mama, and she would say, "Good morning, Honey Bunch." 

                                 I always love to hear the tender things that are remembered.

         These beautiful peach gladioli are from the Elizabeth Bible Missionary Church.

Jonathan's Mother in Heaven

Yesterday afternoon, Jonathan's mother finished the good fight.

She had just gotten home from a visit to her oldest son in New Mexico where she also got to hold her first great grandchild for the first time. 

The picture above is one that Dave and Ruth took of her and Daddy Lucas there. 

Mama was 83 years old, the same age her mother was when her mother died.

In the last week and a half since Daddy took Mama to the hospital, we've been quietly taking steps just in case Mama didn't make it. One of those steps is gathering photos.

The one above is one I found of the day Mama and Daddy Lucas were both baptized along with three of their grandchildren and others at a lake near us.   

 Because of the hope Mama Lucas had in Christ, her family had hope yesterday afternoon after Jonathan arrived first in the morning to discover his mother very, very low. We had hope as Jonathan and his father sang "Amazing Grace" outside the window pictured above at a little station in the hall between two rooms.  Jonathan took a picture of this to send some of us so we could picture in our minds where he was going to visit his mother.

They had hope when Jonathan's dad and his oldest brother took turns dressing up in full c o v i d gear, goggles and all, to go in and say their final goodbyes.

They had hope that even when Mama's double vac ci nation hadn't saved her, God was still there for her.

They had hope as the family was finally permitted to gather in the hall by the station phone by the window and to sing "My Jesus I love Thee."

"I'll love Thee in life, I will love Thee in death," sang the quavering voices, 

while nurses' eyes filled with tears and another patient down the hall expressed the wish that the singing group would come to sing for them, too!

 We had hope after Hannah and I arrived, only a few minutes before the nurses came to the family gathered in the guest room of Penrose Main Hospital to let us know that Helen Lucas had passed away. 

We had hope when the hospital chaplain came to bring a necessary paper to sign and asked if we would desire to pray. 

We had hope when Rose texted, wondering where we were. She had found Grandma's room where the nurses who had been with her had already slipped away, and she wept in my arms, and Jonathan's. 

Hannah sat with her Bible in her lap, open to Psalm 23. 

Grandma had just been to our house about two and a half weeks ago, after coming home from New Mexico. We had helped her out of the house because her knees hurt too badly to step down alone.

She didn't seem her usual self.

And God saw that He didn't want Grandma to suffer any longer, and took her Home. 

We were glad we had no regrets over how we'd treated Grandma. We'd had her to our home different times recently, and gone to hers as well, always helping her and doing our best to be kind and loving, knowing this day was coming.

This plaque was hanging in the elevator at Penrose Main hospital as we came down from third floor yesterday.
"The Lord is a merciful and gracious God; slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity."

No one in the family gathered had eaten lunch, I discovered, forgetting that I hadn't had any either, except two rice cakes on the way to the hospital. Jonathan hadn't had breakfast either, except for a powder shake.

I ran to the grocery store about 4 p.m. and picked up a few things to make supper at Daddy Lucas's place for whoever might end up coming there.

Jonathan had to take care of a business issue, but by the time I was arriving at his folks' home, he was just arriving, too. 

Together we walked past his mother's flowers, still blooming in October, to the door that usually opened to see her inside.

This time she wasn't there.

Tears filled both our eyes as we paused to admire the flowers still blooming along the sidewalk.

I especially noticed this one, an unusually beautiful snapdragon, growing wild right near the front door in the lawn grass, among the leaves that had just blown down. A snapdragon with colors so golden white that they had to be a gift dropped down from heaven to remind us where Grandma had gone.

Old "Beehive" Coke Ovens--and the Furnace of Affliction

While Jonathan and I were back in Ohio a week and a half ago, we wanted to do something with Timmy Saturday morning. I had hoped to take the tour of the Underground Railroad (since Salem, OH, used to be full of Quakers who helped fugitive slaves escape, and many old homes on main streets used to hide them, and tunnels ran underground various places). But the museum and tour wasn't open on Saturday. So I read about the Leetonia Beehive Coke Ovens only minutes away, and we decided to check those out.

No, those coke ovens weren't for Coca-Cola! They were for heating coal and turning it into better quality.

About 100 or so years ago, railroad tracks ran through here, loading and unloading coal that was put into these "ovens."

There were dozens of these brick ovens covered with mounds of dirt.

It was amazing looking inside those and wondering what it was like a hundred years ago when they were operational.

When all that freshly mined and poor quality coal was shoveled into these ovens to bake the impurities out of it and turn it into good quality coal for people to burn in their homes and stoves.

God uses the imagery of a furnace burning impurities out of gold to explain what is happening when He allows or perhaps ordains afflictions in our lives. The heat of those afflictions is not to destroy us, but to purify us.

 These coke ovens only cooked that coal for a certain length of time at a certain temperature, and then that was all. That coal was good to go out in the train to be used.

"When He has tried me," Job wrote in the midst of his affliction with loss and grief and pain and boils, "I shall come forth as gold."

"In this you greatly rejoice," Peter wrote, "though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, (or coal that is burned up) though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

When a Pennsylvania Girl Hankers for Elderberry Pie

I didn't know that my husband had never eaten elderberry pie before, but when we were back in Amish country last weekend in Ohio, I decided that one thing I'd love to have was a piece of elderberry pie! When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, we'd often have elderberry bushes where we lived, especially the one country home where lived near Grove City, PA. Every year I'd go out with a sister or two, and we'd pick enough elderberries for hopefully two pies--because one pie would never be enough for eleven people.

I

I didn't know if we'd find anything elderberry or not. There was this big store in Walnut Creek where we stopped, and it had pyramids of jars of jam and jellies. We hunted and hunted and finally found elderberry jelly.

It's possible, but I rather doubt it was made in an actual Amish kitchen like this one in a little museum we skimmed through quickly.

All we bought to eat for lunch that particular day was a pint of black raspberry icecream and boysenberry jam to dab on top!

Mmm!

But Monday on our way back to the Columbus airport, we had one and a half hours to spare going through Sugar Creek. And while I was shopping for greeting cards at a Gospel Shop, Jonathan peeked through a bakery across the street, and look what he found for me--even though we had to wait quite a while in line!

Someone kindly took a picture of us sharing our single slice of elderberry pie in Sugar Creek Amish country!

Mmm! I was transported back to the bushes of berries we enjoyed so much so many, many years ago. So many tiny, delightful, seedy berries in that pie!

I wondered if those elderberries were actually picked by Amish children or not. Who knows?

I just enjoyed that slice of pie, and reveled in the joy of sharing it with my dear husband at a black and white checkered table in Amish country. A little slice of heaven in a weary land. 

Lord, it was years since I'd gotten to enjoy a slice of elderberry pie. How long has it been since I've enjoyed a little slice of heaven in my quiet time with You? Do You delight me as much as elderberry pie does? Tomorrow is Your day, Lord. May I revel in the luscious taste of a bit of heaven in Your sanctuary and in Your presence!

 

And Now Just Who Was Rooming Next Door?

As Jonathan and I were shown where to find our guest room at the "old farmhouse," as it is called there at AWC, we had a surprise. Up there in the second story where there were three bedrooms, the room right next to ours had another guest--the lady with whom I worked 28 years ago in Kiev, Ukraine, before either of us got married! What were the odds of that happening?

She was back in the States to spend time with her daughter who just had her first baby a few weeks ago! Boy, is it ever a good thing that we are on good terms with each other! Because we keep running into each other literally all over the world and all over the United States--since both of us married young men from Colorado, both of us have been in missions for about 30 years, both of us attend IHC sometimes, and both of us end up in the same place over and over again! (For her privacy and because of where she and her husband are serving now, I won't say a name here.)

And Sunday morning, we were both in the service in Salem,OH, where her grandson was dedicated! 

We keep running into Jonathan's good friend Ken Lefever, too, who sang with his wife and sister-in-law Sunday morning in church. 

And didn't we run into Joanna, too, (younger sister of Joy Albertson in SD), who is attending AWC now. She is such a dear, sweet girl, about 24 years old or thereabouts, who really deserves a wonderful young man--

but before I go off on that tangent.... 

It's amazing the people the Lord brings across our paths. We don't always know the whys or the purposes, but He just lets our paths continue to cross sometimes. 

Maybe it's for the laughs.

The day after I had spoken for the alumni service, we returned to our guest room to discover a paper stuck to it with sticky tack.

"Congratulations!" the paper read in the unmistakable writing of my former coworker in Ukraine, who must have been listening to my wee speech the night before where I told about getting two pink slips for my dorm room when I was a student at AWC.

"You have successfully passed room inspection!"

I stood there in consternation as I debated whether to believe that she had actually checked our room or was just teasing!

"She is just teasing!" I told myself. "Remember all those times in Ukraine when you took her too seriously?"
Maybe I have learned a lesson or two down through the years.

At least I hope so!

Longest Covered Bridge in Ohio--"Bridge of Dreams"

 On our way Friday morning to Salem, OH, we visited the longest covered bridge in Ohio, which was only 500 feet off the road we were traveling.

It was called "Bridge of Dreams."

 Some sort of rubber matting was along one side apparently for horses and buggies to use. The leftovers from horses trotting through this bridge were easy to see!

Mennonites or Amish on bikes passed us more than once as we walked along the straight path a ways.

 

"Bridge of Dreams," I pondered as we enjoyed our walk in the autumn air,

with enormous sycamore leaves piled up along the side of the road, and more leaves floating down every time a breeze rustled through the trees. (Sorry these particular photos of me and aspen are in Colorado, where Jonathan was trying to get a mug of me for the author blurb on the back cover of my next book.)

And I marveled at how God had allowed another dream of mine to come true--to write and publish books.

Here are three versions of the front cover of the next book--trying to decide which colors were best.

That took hours for Ezra to work through different colors and fonts.

 While I, meantime, tried to get a nice mug with yellow aspen, "sunshine and shadows," for the author blurb photo.

That one was from the side and too shadowed.


This one did not have correct lighting, either.

I had to give up and use the same photo I used for the first book. 

Not every single dream comes true!

There are so many details to consider when you want to publish a book. 

 

It's not just about a great story that someone writes. 

It's also about the publishing details--the cover, the font, the headers, the spine, the author blurb, the mug of the author.

The back cover, the preface, the illustrations or photos, the foreword, or the preface. And do you know the difference? (I didn't. Not even until after I wrote my first book.)

It takes hard work and time nearly every day dedicated to your passion to build "The Bridge of Dreams Come True."

If you want your dreams to come true, you can't just sip tea in your little Teegarden Bridge like this one near Salem. You have to set a goal, then do something each day toward that goal. 

"Anya," my former coworker in Ukraine wrote to me a few days ago after I had gifted her with one of my books of Roses in Kiev, "Wanted to let you know that I am proud of you (in the right way). You sat down, wrote that book (and others), got it published, and there are more to come...God bless your tappings--yours on the keyboard and Jonathan's with a hammer."

Walking through two different covered bridges in Ohio, I ponder how I walk through dreams both unfulfilled and others come true, while I continue to tap away!