Saturday, November 8, 2008

Mailbox Delight

Look what arrived in our mailbox on Friday...

...this lovely hat for TC...

...and these gorgeous fingerless mitts for me from Blogless Annie! It's been a hard week - our friend G, who is part of our home church, passed away on Wednesday morning - so it was a perfect time for a pleasant surprise. Thank you so much Annie! TC liked the hat so much he wore it around the apartment for a while on Friday night :)

We spent this morning at G's funeral and burial. She was an amazing lady - came to Canada from Zimbabwe eight years ago to make a place for her son, who waited for her back home. Almost 2 years ago, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which was successfully treated. Just this past year, she was finally able to bring her son to join her here, after 7 years of waiting. Her tumor then reappeared, and this time there was little that could be done. Thankfully, her son, who is 11 or 12, was granted permanent residency late last week, so G knew before she died that he would be able to stay here.

Something that struck us as we were sitting at the reception was that there are a number of similarities between funerals and weddings - the booking of facilities for the ceremony, there's a special car, the reception (where you meet a lot of different people), sending out thank-you notes, the procession of cars, people get all dressed up - the difference (other than the obvious) being that you usually have months to plan a wedding, and for funerals you only have days to pull it all together.

As draining as it all was, it was a good thing. There's something beautiful about gathering together to celebrate a life well lived. And G's life, though brief, was lived with grace, dignity, generosity and love.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, Annie does beautiful work! And God creates masterpieces, doesn't he? Glad you could share in one of his works of art!