Happy Valentine’s Day!

As I mentioned in my last post, we spent the weekend with family at my grandfather’s memorial service. Despite the occasion, it was a wonderful time, getting together with the entire family for the first time in a few years, and celebrating our grandfather’s life and legacy.

As we talked about him and our memories of him, one theme kept recurring and that was his faithfulness to his family, especially his loving care of his wife (known to me of course as Grandma:). During the service, my aunt said that for his entire married life, my Grandpa’s goal had been to please Grandma. Whatever she wanted, that was what he did. And that is so true, something I remember very clearly about him. Up until the very end, his number one concern was the welfare and happiness of his wife.

In fact, this was such a marked aspect of his character, than when I got married almost five years (it will be five years next week!) ago, I asked the music pastor at my church to write a song dedicated to both our sets of grandparents, honoring their lifelong commitment and love for each other. He granted my request and the result was the song, “The Gift of a Lifetime”. My husband and I recorded it prior to our wedding and then played it at the reception. My grandparents were not able to attend the wedding but my aunt was there, and held up her phone so that Grandma and Grandpa could hear the song. If you’re curious, you can listen to it (warning: extremely amateur performance!) here:

Gift of a Lifetime

During my grandfather’s memorial service, my Grandma, my sister and my cousin were sitting together and watching the slide show featuring pictures of his life. One picture was taken way back when, in the early days of my grandparents’ life together. In the picture, my Grandma was wearing a fabulous, colorful dress, and my cousin said, “Wow, Grandma, that’s some dress! Do you remember wearing it?” Now mind you, my Grandma can’t remember much of anything these days, occasionally doesn’t even recognize her own son (my dad). So it wasn’t surprising when she said haltingly that she couldn’t be sure if she remembered the dress or not… but she remembered that boy.

I hope one day when I’m nearly 90 years old and have forgotten everything except maybe my name, that I will still remember this boy:

The Gift of a Lifetime

Through good days and hard time,

Through sunshine and rain;

In gaining and losing,

In strength or crippling pain,

Down the years of constant change

In a world so cold and strange

What a blessing, what a privilege to know…

(Chorus)

That a lifetime ago love swept into your soul.

And we know that you’ve never been the same.

A love sent from above this world knows nothing of-

Blessed gift of a lifetime, your love.

This pattern we’ll follow,

This path we’ll retrace:

Our home built on Jesus,

Our lives crowned with His grace.

In each joy, each smile, and cheer,

In each sigh, each grief and tear,

What a blessing, what a privilege to know-

(Bridge)

That our God is the same,

His promise we’ll claim,

He’s never forsaken His own!

This foundation shall stand,

We’ll hold to his hand,

And go in the strength of His love!

(Chorus)

With a lifetime to go, love swept into our souls.

And we know that we’ll never be the same.

A love sent from above this world knows nothing of:

Blessed gift of a lifetime

A love built for a lifetime,

Blessed gift of a lifetime, our love.

~Music and Lyrics by Joe Mims

And now I’m off to make some of these Lava Cakes for that boy… Have a Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

Editing this post to add: We are now just about 9 years into our own lifetime of love together, and these sentiments ring just as true as ever. Both of my grandparents are now in Heaven, but their gift of a lifetime remains with me. When I was doing a little organizing the other day, I came across the wedding card they sent to me and “that boy”. It seems a fitting and beautiful way to close out this blog post, albeit 4 years later.