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.

Visting, Purchasing, Eating, and Watching

Mildred and Jen have been friends for years, and I get the
impression that one was as glad as the other to see
each other this afternoon.

A good day visiting with the Johnsons. We showed up in the kitchen in our pajamas at different times and finally ate pancakes and bacon together about 11:00. Nina beat me two games out of three at Chinese checkers, and I taught Miles to play Risk on my iPod.
This afternoon Jennifer and Evelyn went to visit Verna Weber's mom, Mildred Holmes, at Mason Christian Village, while the other Johnsons and I went on a mission to spend some of Miles and Nina's gift cards. They came home with armloads of books, courtesy of their Aunt Lisa and Uncle Geoff, and Nina spent a gift card from us at Old Navy. We ran out of time before we could take Miles to Target to spend his gift card there; that's on the list for Monday.

I quickly snapped this picture just before
the lights went out and the play began
this evening.

Nina wore the new top she bought on our outing to the Twin Dragon Chinese restaurant and Playhouse in the Park to see "Christmas Carol." We enjoyed the play; it's an excellent production--the settings, lighting, and sound are as interesting as the performance itself.

Tomorrow Matt and the kids are heading to Indiana in the morning, and Jen is following in the afternoon for an overnight of various family and friends visits there. It's snowing, just in time for them to be on the roads again.
(One thing we won't do in Heaven is make plans around the weather. Come to think of it, I guess we won't make plans at all in Heaven!)

A Little Different, a Lot Nice

A nice Christmas--different, when I come to think about it--than any Christmas I can remember.
Evelyn and I were alone today, except for our fun dinner with all the Webers who were at our place from about 2:00 till maybe 5:30.
We had a nice, relaxed morning and spent a lot of the time getting ready for dinner. We had Honeybaked Ham, cheesy potatoes, fresh green beans, and applesauce Jello. Verna brought a tasty beverage for us to enjoy with our cheese ball and crackers, and Jocelyn brought wonderful Christmas cookies to add to ours  and the Graeter's ice cream we had for dessert. It was a respite from packing for them; they're still planning to load and move on Thursday. And if the snow will allow, we plan to go help them pack tomorrow afternoon.

Mildred Holmes, "Oma," had a pretty smile
while Nora and Ruby wiggled for my snapshot
just before they left this evening.

They're predicting 4+ inches for Butler County tomorrow, preceded by freezing rain, so we're hoping it's not as bad as they're expecting so we can get to Price Hill to help a little. Jen and Matt and the kids are planning to make the trek from Pennsylvania here tomorrow, and I'm nervous about the bad weather they may be facing.
After Webers left this evening, I got on line and bought tickets for the 7:00 showing of Les Miserables at the Rave. We got there by about 6:20 and waited in line behind 50 or 75 people till the theater was cleaned from the previous showing. We had great seats, high in the theater, right in the center of the row, for the best movie experience I can remember in a long time.
A hoard of my Facebook friends went to see the movie today. One of them said he started crying when it started and cried through the whole thing. He would have had good company with the young girl sitting beside me who sniffed and wiped her eyes intermittently throughout the film.
I was surprised to find myself moved to tears more than once during the musical. It was compelling, not so much because of the familiar music but more because of the remarkable portrayals, especially by Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. Kudos should also go to Eddie Redmayne, Helena Bonham Carter, and Sacha Baron Cohen. Of the major players, I was least impressed with Russell Crowe, but he was sufficiently evil enough to make us want him to lose.
Evelyn and I came home and snacked on dinner leftovers, checked Facebook, and watched the threatening weather reports on the TV news to end the day.
It was a good Christmas, like I said, just a little different than most Christmases we can remember.

First Quiet Day in Quite Awhile

I was talking on the phone to a friend. It was close to noon already. "Evelyn's at Early Registration at CCU, and I'm still wearing my sleep shorts and T-shirt. I'm making it a goal to put my pants on before she gets home."
But that was one goal I didn't reach today!
Whenever I just relax--read Time magazine, talk on the phone to friends or family, linger over a second cup of coffee--I feel like surely I should be accomplishing something. But it dawned on me this morning that my life had been go-go-go for at least several weeks, and I decided just to hang out much of the day today.
Not that I accomplished nothing. Paid bills. Filed some receipts and other stuff. Talked on the phone with Susan Aulen who lost her father this week and I had to miss the funeral because I was at NACC. Caught up with Paul Williams. Called Verna Weber and talked with Bill Weber about getting together for dinner tonight. Went to the grocery store. Got some stuff ready for dinner.
But we didn't get to eat with the Webers at our house because Verna's mom, Mildred Holmes, had a bad spell at the hospital when they stopped by to see her on the way to our house. So they felt compelled to stay with her awhile and urged us to go ahead and eat.

So we did. But then, when Mildred was resting, we met them at the hospital and ran over to TGI Friday's so they could eat and we all could visit. (We ate too, of course, a wonderful strawberry shortcake Sunday.) Mildred will likely be in the hospital for a few more days, in our new West Chester Hospital, so we may still get to see Webers at our house before the week is out.
We had blessed rain overnight and a shower again this morning. That means grass cutting either tomorrow or Monday!