About 1 1/2 weeks ago, I got a phone call from my Mom to let me know that my Grandma's blood pressure had dropped drastically. My Grandma had been sick for a long time and had moved to a nursing home last November after being in the hospital for several weeks. I just had that feeling that this was the end and unfortunately it was.
The last time I saw her was in April and we basically said our goodbyes then because I think we both new that would be the last time we'd see each other. I live about 6 hours from her so I didn't get to see her often, especially with a new baby. I was already packing our bags when my Mom called to tell me she had passed. The next morning Connor and I (Daddy stayed home due to his new position at work) left on our long trip up to be with family. (He was so good the whole time and pretty good on the way home, too.)
I still can't believe she's gone, she has always been there! I use to visit her every Sunday (or there abouts) from childhood up until I moved south. She taught me to knit and would help when I'd get stuck on a pattern. I remember riding the bus with her to the mall and spending all day watching Shirley Temple movies with her. Since moving here, we wrote to each other quite a bit until the last year or so. At the end of each letter she would always write "May God hold you in the palm of his hand until next we meet." That has been stuck in my head ever since I saw her last. There are so many more things that I could write about her but nothing would do her justice other than the eulogy my brother wrote and read at her funeral. So I'd like to share some of it with you. (She would have been 94 in August.)
Her life began in 1916, just after the Victorian era-and here locally at the conclusion of the Gas Boom and that life continued all the way through the first decade of the twenty-first century. She was alive during two world wars, a great depression, the rise of the automobile, Kennedy's assassination, the moon landing, economic cycles, and countless other technological achievements. Grandma spent all 93 years here in Muncie, yet had traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, and Canada.
Grandma's love of travel was matched by her love of learning and reading-a love that stayed with her up until the very end of her life. She was a 1933 graduate of Muncie Central and received her teaching degree from Ball State in 1937 at a time when very few even went to college, let alone women. But her love of knowledge was informal as well. I don't remember a time I visited that she did not have a stack of books somewhere in her immediate vicinity. She remembered everything and had a firm understanding of life, history, and the world.
This love of learning and reading extended to her vocation as a teacher-I say vocation because she identified with teaching as a calling and not as a career. During her 60 years of teaching, she inspired and educated over 1000 students, the full influence of which we will never truly know.
While she was proud of these achievements, however, she was most proud of her family. She was the daughter of Gail Burton, a Spanish-American war veteran and Dillie Burton a homemaker. She was the sister of Don Burton, a radio pioneer. She married Luther Farr, who had fought in the Pacific theater during World War II and had two children with him, Kathy and Pat. She had four grandchildren-James, Emily, Erin, and myself along with three great-grandchildren-Jamie, Kaitlyn, and Connor. Each of us were touched by Grandma both in word and deed and I know that if I become half the person she was, I'll have succeeded by true measure based on the qualities of the curiosity, love, and forgiveness-characteristics that have been largely lost in out modern way of life, but measures that Grandma lived by on a daily basis.
We will never forget Grandma or her influence on our lives, nor the last time we saw her as she prepared for one last journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.
Love and miss you sooooo much, Grandma! "May God hold you in the palm of his hand until next we meet."
