Life is short. Too short to harbor grudges that for some last a life time. Too short to avoid talking to the other person, that is until you find out that the person is slowly fading from life. Life is filled with wounded people of all kinds. Young, old and everyone in between walking aimlessly looking for a reason to heal their pain. Bitterness and disappointments cloud their thinking and keep them from reconciling from loved ones.
In many families there are rifts that widen as wide as the largest canyon. The rifts started out as a hurt feeling or a word taken out of context before it grows to something unimaginable.The word taken out of context festers in the mind of the wounded person and grows into something much bigger. Before you know it families are divided with not a clue how to unite them. A misplaced word many generations ago can divide families much like it did with the Hatfield's and the McCoys.
In just a few days my wife and I will be celebrating the life of the wife of my dad's brother. As I reflect on the memories of my parents and his brother and his wife there was one thing they all had in common: they were raised in the era of the great depression. Many people might remember these people as the greatest generation, but many also must remember that for most of them life was hard. Unlike the generation today with it's many over indulgences those who grew up in the great depression knew what it meant to do without. This generation grew up eating what their parents could afford to put on their table. For most there were no prime rib dinners in fancy restaurants.
Children of this era were taught that if they wanted something they had to go out and take jobs. Many of these kids were pin setters in bowling alleys, newspaper deliverers, and the list goes on.
In a few days we will be honoring my Dad's sister-in-law Irene. When I re-read her obituary I learned somethings about her that I never really knew.
From the Miller funeral home website I learned this about my Aunt. Irene Ann Gabrielson was born on May 21, 1921 to William and Melissa Brooks Baker in Minneapolis. In 1946 she was united in marriage to Roger Gabrielson in Minneapolis. She was a long time employee and later retired from Univac. She was an excellent cook who also enjoyed gardening and canning. Irene loved to fish and crochet. Later on in that obituary were these words: she was preceded in death by her parents; husband Roger in 1969, daughter Irene Anne; son, Sonny, and 11 siblings.
From this simple obituary I learned that she had seen tragedy. Her husband died on the operating table as they operated on his heart. I remember my dad receiving the news one morning in 1969 and watching him crying at the kitchen table of our 3 bedroom rambler home. As the oldest in my family I remember all of us with our arms on his shoulder trying disparately to console him. Irene lost a daughter and a son. Having experience a similar tragedy with the loss of Maria I can almost feel the pain of her loss.
Grief has a way of going underground when it occurs. Instead of talking about it we bury grief in layers upon layers of sediment in hopes that it won't resurface again. When we hurt we build walls in an effort to keep people away. . The common refrain I often heard growing up in my family was ' I don't want to talk about it'.
What I learned in my own personal journey of loss is that life is going to be hard and there will be suffering, but by leaning on the Savior and Lord of my life, Jesus Christ, he will see me through the entire journey. Our journeys, if we allow them to be, will one day become our platform where we will have the opportunity to share with others the secrets of surviving our losses.
As I reflect on the life of Irene Gabrielson I am comforted in knowing that she is at this moment experiencing all of the comforts of heaven. In her final months of life God brought her to live with her son Ron Sr. and his wife Carole. Carole often would pray with her and reminded her that when we have Christ we will see heaven. I am comforted knowing that when she took her final breath here she took her first breath in heaven. I wish I could see the excitement in her eyes when she saw her husband she tragically lost in 1969 and her daughter and son who died prematurely.
Enjoy your heavenly reward, Irene Gabrielson. You are home now.
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