Goodbye Amo...For Now

After almost 90 years on Earth, we said "goodbye" to Amo (Gloria Basse Blair) today. She passed away on Saturday, Oct 6 of natural causes. What a wonderful, long life she had.

We had the boys make her cards and draw pictures to give her at the funeral, so that's what they did. Ryan wrote her name at the top of his page and his name at the bottom and scribbled on the rest of the page. On the back, I asked him what he wanted his letter to say. He told me and I wrote it down. It said "Dear Amo, I love you. I will pray for you. Love, Ryan." As soon as we were done writing the letter, he folded his little hands and did what he said he'd do, he prayed for her.

JD drew a picture of him and Amo holding hands in the cemetery. There were three tombstones and he put Amo's name on one of them, Apoo's name on one (Amo's husband who passed away in 1998) and Boompaw on the other (Jane's dad who died when Bud was like 12 or so). Then above each one, he wrote how old he thinks they are - 95, 99 and 105. Then he showed the wind blowing with God and Jesus up in the sky. On the back, he wrote this letter:

Love from JD.

We love you Amo.

Have a grat time in heven.

It was the sweetest letter I've ever seen and makes me cry every time I think about it (and I'm kicking myself for not taking pictures of their letters). It's so awesome that he thinks of her death as a time for her to have some great fun up in heaven.

Sometimes I really wonder if we're doing a good enough job at parenting, and then he does something like that, and it makes my heart dance with joy. I'm just so proud of him and his beautiful heart, and his love for God. He says that God is his best friend of everyone. How awesome is that?!

In addition to the card, he also drew her a green garden. He colored flowers on a separate sheet of paper, cut them out, then taped them on the garden so they stood up straight on the page. It was beautiful and creative, and just the perfect piece of art to send Amo off to heaven.

The funeral was very nice and she had lots of people there to celebrate. I'm glad she's out of her discomfort now. The nurse said that she heard Amo in the bathroom at 6am praying to God that he would take her, she was ready to go. Then the nurse went back to check on her two hours later and she had passed away. I consider her pretty lucky to have been able to call her timing -- ready to be done, ask God for that, then have it given to her. 90 years is a long time to live and she was a very blessed woman.

Dance with the angels Amo!

Oct 31, 1922 - Oct 6, 2012