On Wednesday, October 28 we were awakened by a phone call at 2 a.m. Such phone calls are never good news and this was no exception. My grandmother, Clara Brown, 96, of Winnsboro, Louisiana had quietly passed away in her sleep.
Her health had been in decline for several years. She had been in and out of the hospital several times and spent two short stays in a nursing home for rehab and physical therapy. She was, however, like the “Energizer Bunny”, she just kept going and going and going.
We left the U.S. for Mexico nearly six years ago and have been privileged to visit her in her home several times since then. While we were on stateside assignment in 2007, we stayed with her for a few weeks. The annual pilgrammage to grandma’s house was a family tradition that goes back all of my 53 years.
She was a saintly lady who loved the Lord, loved her family, and loved her church. She left her most recent stay at the nursing home just a few weeks back and once again, aided by her walker, could be seen on Sunday mornings at Temple Baptist Church for the morning worship service. At her funeral, the pastor said, “I would look up and see her entering the sanctuary on Sunday morning and say to myself, ‘If Mrs. Brown can come to church, none of the rest of us have any excuse.’”
That Wednesday morning, we were saddened by the news of her death. My dad asked if we could be in Louisiana for a Friday, 3 p.m. funeral service. We set about to put things in order on the home front and depart.
The trip to Louisiana was about the most difficult that we have made in six years. We encountered strong winds, snow, heavy rain, and tornadoes. But God saw us through and we made it safely there and back.
As the title of this post suggests, our family has entered a new era. The “matriarch” of the family, as my son refers to her, is gone. We’ll miss her greatly and remember her fondly. But it’s time to start some new traditions. Being missionaries, we know something about moving from one phase of life to another.
