Meme: Final Blog Post

This is NOT my final blog post, considering I've only just started blogging. However, I have been tagged to contribute to a Meme that says if you were to post your LAST blog post, what would it be? Some of my friends have had trouble with this one, but the purpose of this blog fits perfectly with the meme. If this were my last blog post ever, I know exactly what it would be.

I would, of course, tell a story.

My neighbor died a few years ago. She was carried away in an ambulance and died later in the hospital. I had been privileged to get to know her that last year, after 8 years of living there....another post on actually getting to know the people who live near you pending....and had been so impressed with her and what an amazing person she was. I was asked to play the organ at the funeral, and was honored to accept. I got frustrated at the funeral, however. There were so many people there, and everything was beautiful, but the talks given were all very....bland. There were sweet talks about the purpose of life, and about death and how it's just temporary, and there were some scriptures, and some nice platitudes, and there was nothing talking about my neighbor or her amazing life! I sat there behind the organ thinking, "Tell her story!" She was a living breathing person who loved and laughed and played and wept and raised children and had hobbies and I didn't want to hear bland assurances about death. I wanted to hear about how fabulous her life was. We were, after all, there to say goodbye to this wonderful lady, and pay tribute to the life she led.

A few years later, my grandfather died. He'd suffered from Alzheimers, and it had been a very traumatic experience to go through. My children, the last time we visited, had been afraid of him, and the strange things he'd do and say. I was surprised, then, when my youngest got very emotional over his death. She cried and cried and was inconsolable. I didn't know what to say or do, so I started to tell her stories about who he was. I told about the swing he'd built himself in the backyard for when his grandchildren would come over. I told about how he used to drive a bus, and how we used to go visit him at the bean cannery where he worked. I told about the fishing trips in his boat, and the time he put on a wig and tried to trick a toddler me into thinking he wasn't my grandpa. I told about the bad times when I was a snotty teenager and treated my grandparents very poorly. I talked and talked until finally, my daughter looked at me tearfully and said, "But I'll never know THAT grandfather!" and I replied, "Yes, you will. You DO. Every time you hear his stories, you get to know what kind of a person he was."

Life is made up of stories- little things that happen to us day by day that make our lives spectacular. The trick is paying attention to them when they happen to us, remembering them, and sharing them. What better way to celebrate life?