Has anyone experienced the perfect life? Maybe.
Surrounded by an adoring family, never touched by sickness, Juniper Sage, age five months, added an other-worldly serenity to our family. Her little pouty lip was more often than not turned up into a smile as someone walked into the room. She’d try to always catch your eyes- that look that let you know you were loved.
Wait, I’m the grandma. Aren’t I suppose to be the one with dispensing the kindness, love and affection?
I can still see her in her light blue gingham dress that fanned out around her tiny body. She spent Easter in her little “throne,” watching her older sister and cousins chase around the backyard for Easter eggs, her eyes shiny with excitement when one of them would come up to her and hold her hand or jiggle a rattle in front of her. You just know she was looking forward to the time when she could walk and follow her bigger cousins around the yard, looking for treasures.
She ate an entire jar of pureed carrots, gobbling each spoonful down as I dipped the spoon time and again into the container, delighting in each bite, as it left the telltale orange rim halo around her tiny mouth.
“Here, Dad, hold her again,” my daughter handed her baby to him. And he did, several times that day.
That day is permanently soldered into my memory, a day that I’m able to pull out and mull over, again and again. What a blessing to have that day.
I believe she did have an ideal life. And then left us for a more perfect world.
Ironically it was a week after Easter. She followed her heavenly father to heaven and now lives the resurrected life her family on earth can only now dream about.
But the beauty of the resurrected life is that the reunion is real. And that’s what keeps me going.
It’s the reality of the gospel that spills forth hope when we lose something so precious as a member of our family.
John 11: 25 “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”
Carol Walter says
How beautiful! Of course, as a grandma myself, I’m teary eyed and a lump in my throat, but what a beautiful way to remember her and the hope and the promise that our Savior gives us. Thank you for sharing, and heartfelt prayers are said for your family.
Carol Stratton says
Thank you, Carol for your kind words.
Dena says
What a beautiful testimony to the memory of precious Juniper. Being the Grandmother in our family, I can only imagine the pain and sorrow, yet the peace that sustains, should one of our precious ones leaves this earth to “follow their Heavenly Father to Heaven”. We have that Hope of being reunited by the resurrected life! Peace be unto you sweet Carol and for Caytlin too.
Carol Stratton says
Dena, so true that we will be reunited again. Thanks for the reminder.