Passed

My wife's grandmother died this past week. She was just shy of her 102nd birthday, so I don't think it came as too much a of surprise that she passed away. It wasn't like she was sick and suffering for very long. Her health was in decline over the past year or so and her mind was slipping as well. But no one can deny she had a long and good life.

She had 4 daughters and 3 sons, one of which died in infancy. Each of the surviving 6 children are still with us and have gone on to have large families of their own. It isn't until you get to our generation that the number of children declines from 3-4 to 1 or 2. For the most part, anyway. Some have had 3 or 4, but others are more urban in their thinking and don't have space for large families. Needless to say, the last family gathering at Christmas had 70+ people there and that was just the offspring of her children. 5 generations in total, celebrating Christmas. That's a good life.

There are some taking the news of the matriarch's passing pretty hard. At first I had difficulty understanding clearly why they weren't more prepared for this. To me, I saw it as an inevitability.
A woman over a century old should be expected to pass away and the blessing of having her in fairly good health for so many years beyond expectation should just lead to a time of "this is it." Her latest great-grandchild was born at the beginning of February. Everyone expected it, why can't they cope with the passing of a family member?

Seems harsh, I know. And I'm not trying to detract from her passing in any way. She'll be missed and missed greatly by a huge number of people. She had a huge, loving family that extended throughout the church family as well. A church she helped establish. She has a huge legacy she's passed to her family and that family is now spread across the globe, working in basically every continent doing missionary work.

A huge family. With no death.

And that's when I clued in. The family's taking it hard because the last death in the family was in the late 1980s, early 1990s. Her husband died of a heart attack while gardening and the family took it hard. Death is not a common factor in the family, despite it's size. To think some of her grandchildren are away at university without knowing a death in the family shows that.

But this could be a bad year for the family. And that's where the coping really hits home. See, her oldest 2 daughters, both in their 80s, are watching their husbands' declining health. It's likely both husbands will not see 2009. One for sure, the other it's hard to say.

She had a good life and we get to celebrate that on Tuesday. I'm not sure where we're going to put everyone though. She's touched a lot of lives.