Eyrealm: Celebrating a Wonderful Life

It has been a whirlwind of activity since Grandma’s passing on October 3rd. Although it took 10 days to get everyone here, we were finally able to gather all nine of children for the funeral. This was no easy task as they live in Boston, NYC, Washington D.C., Hawaii, San Diego, Palo Alto and two in Arizona and unfortunately none of their spouses were able to come. Luckily we have one family in Ogden which accounted for one spouse and five of our grandkids. Shawni also brought 12 year old Grace from AZ to represent the rest of the grandchildren.

As they began to drizzle in one at a time we took advantage of every moment! Here’s breakfast with the girls at a new downtown breakfast place:

And lots of happy greetings at the airport….

Saturday afternoon we went on a fun hike that started with the horses right outside our door. Beauty!

Glorious fall…

On Saturday night we had a fun dinner around the raclette grill with a raclette cheese delight that our Swiss daughter in law taught us about. Tal led a discussion about choices which was something he was learning in his classes at U-Penn. If you want to take a look at the fascinating things one of his guest professors Barry Schwartz had to say in a lecture called The Paradox of Choices check it out here. Most of us definitely have issues with handling too many choices. It was a fascinating discussion! We could have talked all night!

By late Saturday night we had all nine of our children under our roof at the same time. I had folders for each “kid” from 43 years of letters papers and certificates that they got a kick out of sorting out.

Shawni found a particularly entertaining list of her commitments as a child. We got a good belly laugh out of that!

Every bed and couch was full and we had a maybe once-in-a-lifetime breakfast with everyone there before leaving for Logan for the funeral. Here are the men of Eyrealm, ready to leave. Not Noah’s best pose…

After the viewing on Sunday night, we crammed into Grandma’s house for the last time and children, grandchildren and great grandchildren shared their favorite memories of Grandma. Magical! Love abounded!

Sunday night we stayed at a near-by hotel where we thought we had two double beds and a sofa bed in one of the rooms. As it turned out, the couch did not pull out. Jonah put the cushions on the floor and pulled out his trusty sleeping bag and claimed that it was better than sleeping on the floor of the airport where he often finds himself.

Noah absolutely insisted that he was perfectly comfortable with the cushion from a large chair in the living room and two suitcases which supported his bottom half. Go figure! I’m sure it was a delightful night’s sleep!

The funeral was a wonderful celebration of Grandma Ruthie’s amazing and purposeful life! Saren gave a stellar life sketch which included delightful entries from our Grandpa Dean’s journal when he was courting Grandma in 1944 as well as stories that she shared from the grandchildren the night before.

Our wonderful musical nieces and nephews as well as some of Chris and Hedy’s grandchildren provided most incredible music for strings with an moving arrangement by our neice Rennie. We also heard a fabulous arrangement of Amazing Grace by our nephew who is a professional musician. And of course the great grandchildren sang “Oh Boy I Got Joy” with fervor. The closing song was sung by all of Grandma’s 23 beautiful grandchildren.

Grandma’s four sons and daughters all spoke briefly and the icing on the cake…Elder Tom Perry and wife Barbara showed up for the funeral and we were delighted to have Elder Perry, who is four days older than Grandma and went to school with her at Logan High as well as our life-long friend and alternate Grand father, be our final speaker. What a dynamic speech he gave to the future generations to carry on Grandma’s great legacy.

The cemetery was a lovely, peaceful experience, especially after Grandma’s many years of wishing she could be laid to rest by her beloved husband Dean.

Note Grandpa Dean’s headstone in the lower right.

The joy of being together after such a perfect send-off for Grandma is pretty obvious in the pictures below of a mom and dad so happy to have all nine children in the same place at the same time!