Final Peace to a Wonderful Woman

Today my Aunt, Jerri McKellar, left this Earth for a better place.  I wrote about her before on this post.  But today is the day that numerous different emotions, feelings, and thoughts have occurred to me for the very first time.

Sadness is such an overwhelming emotion.  True to the core sadness.  Than throw in external factors to make that sadness dig deeper.  Your mothering concerned about her sister’s last breath, a family a little bit out of sorts on how to deal, coming to terms with the stages in my life, and the innocence of youth.

I have nothing but great love and admiration for my mother, for she is one of the greatest woman on this planet Earth!  She has the biggest heart, is intelligent, is extremely loyal, beautiful, funny, honest (if you only know how honest 🙂 ), and lost her first sibling today.  But what I admire most about my mom, is her focus.  She is remembering the good and her own personal relationship with my Aunt.  I love her for that so much.

With any great family comes a little bit of drama.  Now my family could probably create their own television show and entertain the world, but I think we will just keep that to ourselves.  What I do know and what I have learned is the following:

-There are two sides to every story

-Emotion makes people do and say things they do not mean

-It takes a bigger person to forgive.

And we will leave the family drama at that.

With today’s events I have come to terms with the fact that every day is so very precious.  Its that time in my life to start really cherishing my days with family.  I am in my mid-thirties and I am just coming to terms that some day I will lose the people that I love most in this world-and that sucks!  We will all lose those people.  We have got to have faith.  We have got to do good.  We have got to remember the good.  We have to honor those people that are not physically present anymore.  Its a lot to take in on a Thursday, but its so very real.

Finally, realizing the beauty of innocence.  My 4 1/2 year old daughter said a prayer tonight that blew my mind.  She went through her usual thanking God routine, you know, beautiful mom, family, Earth and than stated the following, “God, I am so glad that you get to meet my Aunt Jerri now.  She is wonderful.  Talk to her a lot because I will miss her.  I know she can hear me, but can’t talk back.  So tell her I love her and thank you God for making her well again.”.  My goodness!  I have no words to describe the emotion I felt at that moment, but my daughter gave me something tonight that nobody else could-CLARITY.  Is it that simple?  Really?  Who knows, but she made me feel so full of love at that moment I do not know how I can ever thank her.

In closing, I love you Aunt Jerri.  Everything about you, even the things that drove me crazy.  You are truly one of a kind and woman that people should look up too.  Your bravery and determination can not be matched.  It is an honor to have been loved by you and to know you.   It is an honor to have laughed so much with you and know that you are truly one of a kind.  Your memory will be kept alive by the people you touched and made laugh.  On a lighter note, if I could, I would open a Bingo Hall and call it Jerri’s House O’ Chips!  The menu would be Diet Coke, cottage cheese, half eaten chocolate candies, all salty chip foods, and a good cookie.  Catch you on the better side some day!