My youngest sister-in-law and her family will bury their mother today. She was a beautiful soul, doted on her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, tended tirelessly to her husband after he suffered a devastating brain injury in a farming accident. I never saw her that she wasn’t smiling or dressed to the nines. We’d talk of missing our husbands and brag about our grandchildren. She died from a lung illness. My first thought, when I was told of her death, was how glorious that gulp of fresh air must have felt as she walked through heavens’ gates, no longer needing help with life’s breath, her lungs cured by a loving God bringing her home to eternal life.

I saw Mrs. Pat as a genteel woman with the grace of a true southern belle. Bible scripture tells us true beauty come from within with a reverence for God. As I sit here pondering, I see Mrs. Pat described in the scripture of 1 Peter 3:4 telling us “true beauty comes not from outward adornment but from the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.” Mrs. Pat had a strong abiding faith that helped her and her family weather the storms of life. Her grandchildren and great-grandchildren adored her. Her students from her years of elementary school teaching must have memories of a kind and loving and helpful teacher.

She was courteous and polite and graceful. She made every one feel welcome in her home. I know many women in Roanoke are remembering their wedding parties hosted graciously in her home, their wedding tea perfectly appointed with beautiful china and crystal, delicious tidbits, little cakes, beautifully wrapped bridal gifts. At the brides’ parties her dining room table was always centered with a gorgeous bouquet of fresh flowers resting in a beautiful silver epergne. When I would attend a party there, Mrs. Pat would always tell me the epergne was a wedding present to her and her husband Jim from my grandmother Margaret Lane. We’d smile and happily talk a few moments about my grandmother.

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” — Mitch Albom

Last time I saw Mrs. Pat we talked about the beauty of her blue hydrangeas and she invited me over to gather a bouquet of her limelight hydrangeas. I took her some pimento cheese and she was as excited over the homemade pimento cheese as I was over the beautiful hydrangeas. “A heart full of love looks a lot like hydrangeas in bloom.” I’ll always remember her sweet smile when I see a blue hydrangea.

I love this poem about death by Alfred Lord Tennyson. Printed in paragraph form. Crossing the Bar — “Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea, but such a tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, when that which drew from out the boundless deep turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark! And may there be no sadness of farewell, when I embark; for tho’ from out our bourne of time and place the flood may bear me far, I hope to see my pilot face to face when I have crost the bar.”

Sleep well my friend in your heavenly bed and breathe deeply from the perfumed flowers of heaven.

“What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller