My mom leaned across the hospital bed and taking her mother’s face in her hands, kissed her, saying, “I love you, momma.” I’ve seen her insert this simple gesture into visits many times in the last few months but Tuesday, moments before my granny took her final breath, would be the last this side of heaven. Momma was with her daddy, my papa, when he went to be with Jesus and her prayer since my ninety-three year old granny began declining several weeks ago has been to be with her mother in the moments of her passing into eternity. God answered her prayer, my granny’s and many of mine this past week on Tuesday, September 23, 2025.
Papa was hospitalized twice before his death but he was at home when hospice was called in hours before his passing. My mom and dad and mom’s brother were with my granny in those final hours. Papa asked for a shave so dad helped my mom wash his hair and give him a clean shave, loving him tangibly in those precious last moments. Since Granny entered the nursing home, mom and dad have cared for her just as tenderly and diligently. On the morning of her passing, my dad had an early doctor’s appointment. As is their habit when they drive into town for appointments, my parents stopped by my house for coffee and a meal or snack before driving the hour home. My grandchildren were here so they lingered longer than usual. They made a couple of stops on their way to the nursing center for their daily visit with GrannyBob.
The nurse who greeted them mentioned that granny had been unusually quiet all morning and they had just helped her back into bed. They took their usual places on either side of her bed and took her by the hands, sharing their warmth with her. They sang several of her favorite hymns together and my dad noticed her eyes seemed distant, focused beyond her room. When my mom held her face, whispering, “I love you, momma,” Granny replied, “I love you, too.” “What about him?” Mom asked, motioning towards my dad. “I love him, too.” Granny replied. Her eyes never closed. She looked away toward the ceiling, her breathing slowed, and she passed through the valley of the shadow of death into the presence of Jesus.
“And Jesus replied, “I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.””
Luke 23:43 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/luk.23.43.NLT
“And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope.
For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died.
We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died.
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God.
First, the believers who have died will rise from their graves.
Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
Then we will be with the Lord forever.
So encourage each other with these words.”
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1th.4.13-15.NLT
Thirty-five years earlier, on April 13, 1990, Granny wrote and sealed a letter to my dad and gave it to my mom. She had tried to talk to my papa about her funeral but he deferred. “Tell Curt or Joyce Ann,” he said. He couldn’t know he would predecease her but he was not prepared to have that particular conversation. My dad had not yet surrendered to God’s call to ministry but my grandmother asked him in her missive to preach her funeral, saying she knew he would do as good job as any minister and better because he knew her best. My dad’s parents both passed during my early childhood. Mom’s parents loved him as their own for their whole lives. Granny stated her wishes explicitly, requesting only a graveside gathering and even pointing to a passage of scripture for meditation.
“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.
We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing.
For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.
While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us.
Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life.
God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.
So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.
For we live by believing and not by seeing.
Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.
So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him.
For we must all stand before Christ to be judged.
We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.
Because we understand our fearful responsibility to the Lord, we work hard to persuade others.
God knows we are sincere, and I hope you know this, too.
He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves.
Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ.
And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him.
For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them.
And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation.
So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us.
We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!””
2 Corinthians 5:1-11, 15, 18-20 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2co.5.1-20.NLT
Granny and her sister, Joyce, my mom’s namesake, were my first Sunday school teachers when I was only four. A first generation believer, my granny trusted Jesus the same week as her mother and her husband. She had only an eight grade formal education but she studied her Bible her entire life, reading its entirety many times over. When I was grown and married, we shared many conversations centered around what God was teaching us through His Word. When I prepared to teach a Sunday school lesson, she would say, “Now teach it to me.” She loved my children and the first of their children as she loved me. Her impact on my life is inestimable. I am convinced that her prayers over me alone saved me many a time from myself and from the snares of the enemy. I am forever grateful to God for her and I look forward to seeing her again.
My daughter baked GrannyBob’s ninetieth birthday cake and we celebrated around my table. I asked her what it felt like to be ninety. She replied matter of factly, “I never thought I’d live to see it.” Then quoting scripture,
“Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
Psalms 90:10, 12 NIV
https://bible.com/bible/111/psa.90.10-12.NIV
Granny would have seen her ninety-fourth birthday in a few weeks on October 9th. We gathered to celebrate her life this week but in truth, we will be remembering her with smiles and sighs until we meet again on streets of gold. If there weren’t already, there’ll be pound cakes and homemade biscuits with a healthy slab of onion in heaven. She’ll be washing dishes if such things are done there and she’ll be singing a new song. The ones I remember best are now her reality.
“Some bright morning when this life is over
I’ll fly away
To that home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away
I’ll fly away, oh glory
I’ll fly away, in the morning
When I die, Hallelujah by and by
I’ll fly away”
(Albert E. Brumley, 1932)
“I’m satisfied with just a cottage below
A little silver and little gold
But in that city where the ransomed will shine
I want a gold one that’s silver lined
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop
In that bright land where we’ll never grow old
And some day yonder we’ll never more wander
But walk on streets that are purest gold”
(Ira Stanphill, 1949)
““Don’t let your hearts be troubled.
Trust in God, and trust also in me.
There is more than enough room in my Father’s home.
If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am.
And you know the way to where I am going.”
Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one can come to the Father except through me.”
John 14:1-4, 6 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jhn.14.1-6.NLT
“So teach us to consider our mortality, so that we might live wisely.”
Psalms 90:12 NET
https://bible.com/bible/107/psa.90.12.NET
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