We tried to shelter the kids from the severity of her illness, explaining to them that Nana was sick and needed our prayers...but never that she was dying. Her death called into question all sickness and the mortality of all of us. It immediately occurred to Aaron that if Nana could die, then any of us could die. "Mom, are you going to die? Is Dad going to die? If you and Dad die, then who is going to take care of us?" He also inquired if the infection in his finger was cancer and if he was going to die, pondered who would live in Nana's cabin, inquired whether Nana would come alive again in 3 days like Jesus, and wondered if Nana was going to forget him. Collin began impulsively asking how old loved ones were in relation to each other, calculating how much time he had left with them.
On the Friday evening after Nana's funeral, I was reading "Junie B. Jones is Almost a Flower Girl" to Aaron. In it, Junie B. wishes on a star. Aaron interrupted my reading with "Momma, excuse me. When I see a shooting star, I'm gonna wish that Nana is alive again. That will be a great wish won't it?"
"Yes, Aaron."
"But, Mom...our shades are closed, so I can't see the stars." Aaron lowers his head and begins to cry. "I need to see the stars."
Collin and Aaron, there are a couple things I want to help you remember about your Nana.
First, Collin, it was you who gave her the name "Nana Splash". She laughingly teased from the shore, "Don't you splash me"...and you giggled and laughed from BaPa Minnows and Honey Honey's boat and shortly, thereafter, began calling her "Splash." Nana always made you feel welcome and loved.
Aaron, Nana will never forget you...nor will she ever stop believing that you are a genius who is going to prove all of those silly doctors who made a big fuss over you during my pregnancy wrong. From the beginning she believed everything was going to be more than alright with you...and delighted in your presence. She had big dreams for you...and big expectations, and absolutely no doubt that you would be able to live up to them.
Nolan, you are the least likely to remember this most amazing woman who was your great grandma, but you were special to her, too. For you, she reserved "kisses in the ice cream spot", which you would then affectionately give back to her. Just the other day you pulled my face close to yours, whispered in my ear "ice cream spot", turned by head, and planted one of Nana's signature kisses on the back of my neck.
Adam was moved by this poem when I read it to him from the back of the little blue hospice booklet the weekend Ed and Wendy took the boys to St. Cloud for an overnight. It seemed to embody Shirley, a woman who was always at home on the lake near the water.
"I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship, at my side, spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone..."
Gone where?
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"
And that is dying..."
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