A Life Well Lived

We went to the memorial service for Verna Weber's mother, Mildred Holmes, this morning at 11:00. She passed away quietly earlier this week after being moved from the hospital to hospice care at Mason Christian Village on Monday. She had been sick all that weekend after suffering a small heart attack, stroke, and two different infections. "It took all that to finally get her down," her granddaughter, Miki Brooks said. Miki and her brother, Donovan, sang "Amazing Grace," and Bill Weber offered the eulogy. He was concerned that he wouldn't be able to get through it without breaking down, but he did a fine job. When his voice momentarily broke or his eyes watered, we all thought, Well of course! How could you not show some emotion about a person you loved so much? 
Mildred had just celebrated her 97th birthday. Her life story is too varied and full of adventure for me even to remember, let alone try to chronicle here. She overcame illness, obstacles, the deaths of husbands and children, and more with a firm commitment to Christ and the church in the midst of a lifetime of service. "Plucky." "Spunky." "Determined." All those words describe her.
It was our special pleasure to know her. We were in the habit of getting together with the Webers for various holidays, and often Mildred was with us. Sometimes we picked her up at her apartment at Mason Christian Village and took her to the party at the Webers' place in Price Hill. Sometimes some of the Webers brought her to our place.
Donovan and his wife, Jocelyn, asked Jennifer if she would write a history of Mildred's life and compile it in a book to give to the rest of the family several Christmases ago. The result contains all those details I can't remember. In the process of spending hours and hours with her taking notes for the project, Jennifer fell in love with Mildred, and it seemed the feeling was mutual.
In his talk this morning, Bill said his sister-in-law, Mildred's daughter-in-law, said, "All our memories of her are good and positive and happy."
That's not hard for me to believe. And one more legacy Mildred has left is the challenge to each of us to live so that those closest to us will say the same about us when we're gone.
Today's pictures are two I posted last December (search "Mildred Holmes" in the blog for the diary entries). The first is on Christmas Day as the Webers were getting ready to go home after our Christmas dinner and I snapped Mildred smiling with great granddaughters Nora and Ruby.
The second was taken a few days later when Jennifer was in town for the holiday and went to visit with Mildred at Mason Christian Village.