Newly wed version of Don and Laura.
Today a group gathered to remember a Husband, Father, and Grandfather who passed away. We read and sang and spoke, but then watched a series of pictures tracking his life from infancy to a photo taken just days before he passed.
I love these tributes. My ministry is about being with people whose youths are memories, and I see the shattered remains of their physical bodies toward the end. To view a couple married 63 years when they were dating, to see the man with his own father, to see years of birthday and anniversary and wedding photos was precious.
Roger was a swimmer with massive upper body strength and huge hands, and his Norwegian heritage was so evident in his youth, a strapping lad, and during his working years you saw the weight fluctuations the growing wrinkles, so real, so undeniably part of the process God has ordained for us to be living with the reality that time will run out, the engine will slow, the body will age. It moves me when families can keep and organize those memories and share them with us.
I have the pics, sure do need to work on the organization part.
1 comment:
I am so in awe of the aging process -- especially late life. I was honoured to put together the slide shows for both of my grandparents a few years ago (and Marc's dad two years ago).
For my grandpa we had the music of "In the Garden" as soundtrack, because he was an avid gardener. Interposed throughout the pictures of him and the family were flower pictures. And perhaps the most powerful picture was one of the last ones which was him in the last week of his life, in a wheelchair (something he only needed to have for that one week) sitting in his garden -- the garden he had planted that spring at age 92 -- for the last time. His frailty and strength were juxtaposed so beautifully in that picture.
A giant bouquet of lilies from his garden were on his casket. :)
I think we could have some great conversations, Don, about end of life issues. And I hope we can have them as I start my palliative/end of life counseling practice in the next few years.
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