Linda Lee 4/2/25

On May 17th we gathered as a family to honor Linda so I amended what I already wrote for the time with our family.

It is my job and my honor to offer us comfort, instill hope and remind us that God is still good.
We gather and our hearts are broken wide open. I am sad. We are sad. None of us wants to be here for this reason of grief over Linda’s death; but at the same time we are so glad to be here as a family to honor and celebrate the life of Linda Lee.

Death is never convenient, and it matters that we are here together as a family. There is something powerful about getting together in the same room and breathing in and out our sadness; breathing in and out words of faith; breathing in and out our love for Linda together as family. This time of mourning is important for our family us as we talk together, say goodbye, remember, celebrate, laugh and cry.

Our personal journeys of grief have begun now, and grief plays by its own rules. It doesn’t follow a linear path but ebbs and flows as we figure out how to live without those we love moving forward.
Sorrow is actually a gift that connects us to the heart of God and His presence. Jesus said, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”. God is near to the brokenhearted. I know I am not saying anything new as we have all grieved Papa, Jim, Pam and Kathy for the last 10 – 15 years. God is brilliant at using all our life circumstances, good and bad, to make a perfect work.

Jim’s mom died before I ever knew him. I cannot wait to meet her in heaven and tell her thank you for raising her son who became my life partner. BUT, In 1984, Jim & I gained a stepmother when he married Papa to Linda on July 4th, 1984! That is when I gained more “in-law” siblings and a mother-in-law for the first time.

Modern families are very complex. Perhaps other families were too back in the day, but it feels like the families of today were not the simple families I “knew” growing up.

When I think of Linda I think of Home. Home is sometimes a person.

A person feels like home when they build relationships. There is a sense of comfort, hospitality and love with a person, even if you have never lived with them or the building is not the place where you grew up. Linda and Lionel created a home that was open for all of us. It was their relationship that created a new community, and it always felt like family.

Linda and her grown sons – you 3 (Ed, Matt and Jim) – and your families immediately became our family. Papa and Linda suddenly had 7 kids “plus”, and we got together for both ordinary and big events, raised our children as cousins, celebrated holidays and many life events, played together, and weathered our fair share of hardships and trials. Linda became my kids’ grandma, and she loved them as though they were hers biologically, even after Lionel had passed away and she had remarried. April 2, my mother in love, Linda Lee, left earth for the joy of heaven. I am sure that Jim, Pops, Pam and more were there to welcome her home.

Probably because she was not Jim’s mother and because everyone was already grown, Linda and I were more friends that the typical in-law relationship. She never offered me advice or felt the need to defer to me; maybe she did with Tammie, but my Jim was not a son she had raised.  Don’t get me wrong, Linda was a strongly opinionated woman, and she was not shy about sharing her views, but I never felt disrespect when we shared differing viewpoints, and I always felt seen and cared for. Linda shared her home, her faith, her heart and many cups of tea. She is instrumental in Lionel coming to faith in Jesus in his later years. Sometimes home is a person – your heart is their home, and they too have made a place for you in their heart. Ultimately the person this reflects is the Lord. He is our ultimate home.

Sometimes Home is a Place

When I say the word home, we each think of the place we currently live, of the houses we grew up in, or the ones we always dreamed of creating. When I think of Linda’s space as home I think of the distinct and unique style that she created and decorated. Today, Linda sees home very differently than we do because she is now in her forever home!
There are some things that look different from the other side. It’s called perspective. When hiking we start at the Bottom of the mountain and wonder how we will ever get to the top! At the end of the trek, we wonder how we ever made it or perhaps wonder how we will ever get back down!
When a child starts school, we parents think there is plenty of time, but it goes faster than we think. My perspective is so different now that I am an empty nester.
When a child gets braces on their teeth, they wonder what their smile will look like at the end, but no amount of imagination compares to seeing the real thing at the end.
One night when we lived in Phoenix, before Clayton was born, we were outside looking at the stars and my Emily, who was 3 or 4 at the time looked at the night sky and quietly said that the bottom side of heaven was super pretty and she wondered how beautiful the right side must look.

Ps. 116:15 gives us God’s perspective on death too. Precious in the sight of the lord is the death of his saints.
For us the way forward looks daunting. It is a time of loss and defeat and separation. But from the side Linda, Jim, Pam, Kathy, and Dad are on, it is a time of release, reunion, rest and reward!
We think of it as losing and it really is gain.
We think of it as parting. But it is arrival
We think of it as the end. It is the beginning.
We think of it as a closing door, but it is an opening gate
We are going from the land of the dying to the land of the living.
Yes, at first glance death looks like the end; it seems so final. The end of relationships, the end of all we have worked for, etc. But, it really is the beginning of a bright new, abundant and eternal life.
Our family used to watch the sunset and blow the sun out as it dipped beyond the horizon. Poof it was gone. “There it goes”, we would say. But it really is not gone; it is just out of sight! Someone else on the other side of the world was waking up and was saying, “Here comes the sun!”
Similarly on April 2nd, I got a call from Tammie and heard her say, “There she goes! She is gone! But, I can imagine what was happening on the other side as Jesus carried her through the gates and that great cloud of witnesses said, “Here she comes! She’s home!

More than forty years after we became family, many things have changed. We have buried both of the people that made us family in the first place, as well as many other family members. Over the years, times and relationships have been strained, bridges burned, and feelings have been hurt in our extended family. Linda remarried, the grands all grew up and family gatherings have become faded memories, for better or worse.  Yet, I still value the relationship of my mother-in-law and thank God for the life she shared with me and my kids. One more person I love made it safely home and I long for the long hello of heaven, because sometimes home is a place.

 

I have hope as I am reminded that Lastly, Sometimes Home is a Promise

 

Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, so that where I am, you may be also.

 

This is one of the greatest truths found anywhere in the Bible, and it implies that God dwells somewhere in a permanent place. What Jesus is teaching us is that in God’s house, which is heaven, there are many mansions to live. To me, that promise gives me great comfort, that I can know for sure that Jesus has already prepared a home in heaven for me to live.

Whether or not home here on earth is healthy, safe or good, the promise of such a home is powerful. We all have an idea of it. It is a place where we are accepted and loved. A home is where I am not a guest, but where I’m a resident. I belong. That’s home.

 

Romans 8:38 tells us that nothing separates us from the love of God through Jesus Christ – “not death, not dementia, not cancer, not.a.thing!!! Instead it says that the promise of home means that nothing can destroy our faith, Our love. Nor our eternity!  For the promise of heaven is no mourning, crying, pain or death. All things are made new.

Linda is home, where we all belong. In the meantime, we ache, because we miss her. We’re the ones who have to say goodbye. There will be dark days ahead, but the same God is with us, ready with his heavenly hankie, offering to wipe away our tears, to hold us in his arms and allow us to cry on him. He’s whispering to us, I’m with you. I’ll always be with you. You’ll never be alone. I promise. I am your home.

Today Linda is home.  And we can believe that God will keep his promise to us too, as we wait to have a New home, a New body and New life that will never end.

Linda is enjoying all the splendors of her new home. A New fellowship. A new and better life. Hope is faith that looks forward to that place called heaven where there is:
No more death. No more good-byes. No more grief. No more sorrow. No more sin. And no more pain.
In Heaven, we will walk on streets of gold. In Heaven, there will be a family reunion. We will be reunited with those who have gone on before us. In Heaven, we will experience peace that is beyond comprehension. And most importantly, we will be with Jesus. And we will finally see the great love of God in all of its glory. We too will be home.
In the last book of the Chronicles of Narnia, one of the Characters says when they land on the shore:
“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now…Come further up, come further in!”
“And as Aslan spoke, He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”
• C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Sometimes home is a person. Jesus.

Sometimes home is a place. Heaven.

And sometimes it is a promise that gives hope a home.