Did you ever notice that right around the time of year when colds and flus bring a great need for vitamin C God makes all the citrus fruits ripe?

He is so good!!  All the time.

So, school lately has been mostly just life lessons.  After a day of baking in reponse to my grandmothers passing, we packed up and headed to northern Louisiana.  Eight and a half hours later, having stopped at a rest area to make ourselves as presentable as possible, we drive directly to the church for the viewing.

Sofia, the 3 year old, is facinated by Great-grandma's lifeless body.  She wants to touch her.  I explain that she may gently touch her but, that her body will be cold since she took her heart with her to heaven and that is what makes us warm.  I think to myself that we will talk about the difference between heart and soul when she has grown a few more years.  She touches her and asks me where did she go?  I tell her she went with Jesus.  She looks around and asks, "but, where is Jesus?"  Realizing that she is looking for a crucifix, I look for a cross so that I can explain that he isn't there (non-Catholic church) because he is escorting Grandma to Heaven.  However, I discovered something that had escaped my notice for all of my nearly-forty years!  There was not a cross to be found in this church.  Everywhere that I would have expected a cross there was a tounge of fire.  Needless to say I was a little taken aback.

Sofia was fine with everything except for the sadness that was being expressed by the people that she loves.  THAT made her sad too.

Zac is a little sad but, mostly his is enjoying his new-found cousins who are equally as mesmerized by him.  He and  his male cousins (he actually has cousings that are not girls!  Who woulda thunk!) had a great time being guys.  We promised to try and make a trip to Georgia for the Woldwide Lego Robotics competition wether or not Zac's team makes it to the finals.  That's where all the male genes in the Fillingame family landed, well most of them anyway.

Emily was very sad at first.  She mourned for an appropriate amount of time and then rediscovered her Austin cousins.  Yeah!  She and Elena had a blast telling ghost stories and generally just being girls.

After the funeral on Saturday afternoon we ate some more!  And, then Uncle Bubba (not a joke!) make a great big bonfire for the kiddos who roasted hot dogs and marshmellows.  We sat around the fire singing old gospel hyms that would make Grandma proud and then digressed into scout camp songs and scary stories.  All in all it was absolutely the most fun ever had at a funeral!  Grandma always knew how to have a party.

Golden Funeral Home of Bastrop Inc.

---

Vertie Mae Fillingame
(Died October 24, 2007)

When I was I child we would drive all night, after many hours of "how much longer?" to which the reply was always, "oh, about 15 more minutes," my sister and I would sleep either on the floorboard of the car or laying in the back window.  If I had lost the fight for the window I would be lulled to sleep by the tha-thunk-tha-thunk of the wheels hitting the cracks in the Louisiana highway.

We would arrive in the middle of the night to my storybook grandma's house deep in the piney woods of northern Louisiana.  We would drive over the cattle guard and up the long gravel driveway past the old gasoline pump to the light on the porch.  As we pulled up to the house my grandmother would step out in her long nightgown and robe with her nightcap and a broad smile on.  She would give us each strong squeezing hugs with much patting on the back and welcome us into a house where the smell of freshly baked pecan pies still lingered from her days labor.  Stacks of pecan pies would be neatly wrapped in foil and tucked away on the counter but, one would usually find its way out before we retired to our pallets.

Tomorrow we will make that long drive again but, this time it will be daylight.  Grandma won't be there to greet us this time.  We are going to celebrate her passing into the Heaven that she sang so beautifully about all our lives.  But, she hasn't been waiting on the porch that way for a few years since she has been in the nursing home. 

Aunt Tambra will be there and all of her kids and grandkids.  Her house now sits just a few yards away from Mamaw and Papaw's old house.  The pecan pies will be the fruit of mine and Emily's labor.  But, the recipe will be the same.  We will be back on pallets in the living room making sure that we don't sleep close enough to Scott that we wake up with our hair twisted into knots.  And, the response to the kids will be the same when they ask, "how much longer?" ... "Oh, about 15 more minutes."