a life well-lived

Monday morning, dear Grammy passed from this life. She left this life the way she lived it; not splashy or dramatic, but just peacefully & graciously slipping away with her loved ones around her. She was an ordinary woman of seemingly little importance by the world's standards. But to her family, & everyone that knew her, she was a jewel of a woman. I didn't have the opportunity to know her as long as most; I heard about her from my friend, then sister-in-law Carmen, before I got to know her as my own Grammy. But even then, I admired her spunk & bright outlook on life. She worked really hard raising her family when her husband was confined to a wheelchair. Life didn't always treat her gently. She had a child, husband, & grand-children precede her in death. But I never got the sense that she was bitter about any of it. She'd tell me when I'd go visit her on sunny afternoons after eating lunch with Dar on the farm, "It'd be easy to look around at this world & all its problems & get down. But really, here in our little part of the world, we've still got it pretty good." Then she'd look out her big living room window at Mt. Hood rising majestically over the blueberry fields, embroidery in her lap, and I knew she was happy. She loved her little home so much. It wasn't fancy, it wasn't much, but she felt safe & enclosed in it & appreciated it. In the days before she died, she would say, "I just hope that whoever lives here after me appreciates this little house as much as I did." 

People outside of her small circle of influence will never know what they missed out on by not knowing Marion Sinn. But she radiated peace & contentment, no matter what her circumstances were. Knowing her makes me want to be more content wherever I am, with whatever I have now. I see how people felt so comfortable dropping by her house, calling her on the phone (it was a rare occurrence to be at her house & not have the phone ring from someone just wanting to chat) & I want my life to be that way. She makes me embrace being "just a mom" because I see how much influence & difference she made in the world by loving her children & grandchildren & just quietly praying for them & teaching them by a godly, consistent example. If, at the end of my life, I have been a fraction of the woman Grammy was, I will have lived a life well-lived.