Going Home...

God's finger touched her and she slipped away.
From earth's dark shadows to a brighter day.
God saw the road was getting rough, the hills were hard to climb.
He gently closed her weary eyes, and whispered, "Peace be thine."
To a beautiful garden this friend has gone; to a land of perfect rest.
Though she is gone she still lives on, in the garden of memory.

On November 23rd my family said goodbye to my dear sweet Great Grandmother, Clarice. It's taken me nearly 4 weeks to write this post because I've had a hard time trying to decide how to blog about this amazing, loving, unselfish, Christ-filled, spunky Norwegian that I called Great Grandma for 29 years...I bet she never thought she'd see the day she'd make it to a blog :).


This amazing, loving, unselfish, Christ-filled, spunky Norwegian Great Grandma of mine, loved life! Oh did she love life! So much so that she spent 95 years here on earth...not wanting to miss a beat!

My Great Grandma loved to travel and during those 95 years, she traveled to nearly every state in the United States and made 3 trips to her native country of Norway where she visited family and made sure to bring back some of the Norwegian heritage to share. I remember the days when we would sit at the kitchen table drinking coffee, (yes, her and my Grandma Gayle started playing "tea party" with me at the age of 2 and that's when I officially became a coffee drinker...probably why I'm only 5'2 and 3/4" tall - they say coffee stunts your growth :) looking at sepia tone pictures of my Great Great Grandparents, Nin and Bop and Other Nin and Other Bop. It was so intriguing to hear stories about them...their farms, their houses with mud grass roofs, horse drawn carriages, making their own clothes, being born in the 1800's, traveling to America...I loved it! But what I loved most was seeing the pride in her eyes when she talked about it. It was her heritage...it was her!

When my Great Grandma wasn't traveling from state to state or country to country, she was traveling around small town Madelia. Picking up all of her little old lady friends in her car and driving them from one destination to another. It was never a surprise to see only her eye's peering over the steering wheel as she drove a top speed of 5 mph with a handful of other ladies who could barely see out the window. She would take them to church, funerals, bake sales, musicals, bowling (that's right, my Great Grandma bowled until she was 80) and never to forget their daily card game of 500. She was a busy lady...always the life of the party!

But my Great Grandma's greatest joy wasn't her card games, or her bake sales, or even her travels...my Great Grandma's greatest joy was her family. Her 3 children, her 8 grandchildren, her 13 great grandchildren and her 8 great great grandchildren. She loved all 32 of us. Endlessly. Unconditionally. Unselfishly. She never missed a birthday. A Baptism. A Christmas. A band concert (even when the instruments were out of tune). A school play. Or a family reunion. Her refrigerator and her bulletin boards (plural) were filled with the most recent and even old pictures she couldn't bare to take down. Her life was her family, she lived for us and for Him.

(Great Grandma with a few of her great great grandchildren when they were babies)

This amazing, loving, unselfish, Christ-filled, spunky Norwegian Great Grandma of mine, lived a beautiful 95 years. And although I will miss our tea parties, the candy jar filled with red hot candy hearts, sugar cookies and scrolls, drinking out of the monkey glass and hand sewen or quilted gifts each and every year for Christmas, my heart smiles to think of her spending Christmas this year with her husband and the Lord she loved so faithfully!

A few pictures of her greatest joys celebrating her life... (Cayel was running a temp so he and daddy stayed back in Spearfish and unfortunately weren't able to make the drive back to Minnesota for the funeral with me)

My Grandma Gayle with her sister-in-law Jan and brother Robert

My great uncle Robert with his wife Joannie and their foster son, Matt

My Grandpa Jim and my aunt Lisa

My Grandpa Jim and I

My aunt Becky and her daughter Erica

My Dad and his brother Scott, sister Becky and sister Lisa

All of my cousins (8 girls :)...Brooke, Alyssa, Erica, Jennifer, Sonya, Sarah, Me and Chelsea

3 of the 8 great great grandchildren...Jada, Jaylyn and Carter

My cousin Sonya and my newphew Noel (after swimming at the Hotel)

My niece Jada

My Dad and his brother Scott (just before the funeral)

My cousin Alyssa and her husband Courtney

My cousin Brooke and her fiance James

My cousin Sonya, sister Sarah, cousin Jennifer and cousin Alyssa

My sister Chelsea, me and my cousin Brooke