There was a peaceful feeling in the Relief Society room as I sat and watched my family say goodbye one last time to their mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. We had purposely scheduled a time for our immediate family to be alone with mother before the actual viewing started, and all of my family was there.
I sat on the front row by my husband, Moe, watching for a few moments, then I looked up at the picture of the Savior hanging in the front of the room. Suddenly it hit me. Mom had probably already had a chance to talk with Christ and be welcomed home! Wow!
I turned and whispered to Moe what I was thinking, and he whispered back, “Yes. And your dad probably escorted mom in to meet the Savior.” Double Wow!
My parents had been amazing. I don't believe I ever met two more wonderful, dedicated disciples of Christ in my life They wanted to be good, they wanted to be like Him, and over a lifetime they had achieved their desires. What a legacy they had left for me.
“Everyone in our family wants to be good,” Dad told me once, and he was right. We might be human, and a little selfish, a little oblivious to the pains and suffering of the people around us, a little stubborn and set in our ways, but underneath it all, we wanted to be good.
The night before mom's funeral we had dinner in my sister Linda's backyard. It was the first time we'd all been together since dad passed away a year and a half earlier. After eating, my brothers and sisters and I walked across the street to mom's house, leaving the children to play and visit at Linda's. I had been dreading this moment ever since mother passed, afraid that hard feelings might arise when it came time to divide her possessions. I shouldn't have worried.
Room by room, we walked through mom's house, letting everyone claim items that were special to them. I was surprised by some of the things that were important to my brothers and sisters, but it was a sweet way to reminisce and recall fond memories and happier days. It seemed to me that everyone was bending over backwards to make sure no one felt left out or unhappy, and I think everyone was satisfied when we finished. I hope they were.
Later, after the funeral, we let the grandchildren and great grandchildren go through the rest of mom's stuff and choose tokens of remembrance for themselves. Again, it was sweet.
My youngest sister, Sharon, had taken a special family under her wings a few months earlier, and was including them in everything we did. At first, it was a little awkward, since the rest of us didn't know these people, but the whole family tried to be polite to them.
Sharon's friend, Tanya, made beautiful necklaces out of crystal and glass beads. She had given one to mother on Mother's Day a few weeks earlier, and wanted us to bury mom in it.
“That's too much,” my other sisters whispered when they heard about that, but I knew mom would have said yes if we'd asked her, she was always trying to make other people feel good. And it really did look pretty against mom's beautiful white Temple dress.
Tanya also made matching necklaces for each of us sisters, as well. They were a little too “blingy” for my taste, at least to begin with, but I wore mine that day anyway, and you know what? It was lovely. Now it is my favorite necklace, and I wear it often. Most of all, it gave me a chance to try to be like my mother, and I appreciated that. My goal in life is to be good, like her, and I'll be working on it the rest of my life. When I die I want my mom to be able to come up to me, give me a big hug, and whisper in my ear, “I'm proud of you, Gale. You were good.”
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