Harvest Field: Anderson: A Personal Account of The Miracles Surrounding My Nana's Death

This is Phil Larson writing about my experiences going home to celebrate my Nana's life and the grace God mercifully left behind. Her name was Maxine Sanders. She was awesome.

My Nana had her 83rd birthday a week before she died. I got to have an incredible 13 minutes of phone conversation with, which I will cherish for the rest of my life. That was the last time I heard her say my name. No one said my name like my Nana.

A couple days after the news of her death, just before we left to return home to MN for her funeral, I wrote a song. The song opened with a line and closed with the same line. The line: "Dear God who gives and takes away, please don't take away without leaving some grace." I drive, my wife in the passenger seat and my other set of grandparents in the back seats. The ride was contemplative and relatively quiet. My wife, reading a book, reads me this excerpt concerning prayer:

Let your soul speak for itself. Some souls hold conversation with God in music, and some in the sowing of seed, and others in the smell of sawed wood, and still others in the affectionate understanding of their friends. All souls are not alike. Utter your own prayer, in the language of your own joy.

Music is the language of my joy. My soul uttered its prayer in song. My God heard.

Arriving home for a funeral is a bittersweet experience, as most understand. My mom greeted me at the door, followed by my grandpa. A moment of hugging and crying with that man followed and will be forever engrained in my mind. My brother arrived and the family was all there. A full rainbow appeared over our house shortly following, similar to the one that appeared to Kylee's mom and her siblings after Kylee's grandpa's death.

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As the next 24 hours ensued (which felt like a week), I heard the following stories which I will tell in the order that I feel most effective.

Eight weeks before her death, she had another trip to the hospital. On that trip, she claims that she "saw the light seven times." The first two were faint but the last five were strong and as she started to walk toward the light, it got bigger. So she deicides, 'I want to go to the light!' As she does, she feels a light grab to the back of her neck and hears a voice say, "You're not finished yet."

The next few weeks consisted of some pretty pivotal conversations with a lot of her family and friends, with the help of her birthday lending to a lot of phone calls. One in particular was with her sister Tiny, whom she was especially close to. Tiny's health was also not very good and their conversation was one of a realization that they probably didn't have a whole lot of time left. They told each other how they loved one another and, in a way beyond their understanding, said their goodbyes.

My Nana fell in the kitchen, hitting her head rather hard. She had emergency surgery, from which she seemed to recover from at first. Even joking saying, "What are we going to do with me!?" Oxygen levels dropped and the next day, she wasn't very responsive. The doctors said this was normal at her age with that kind of blow after surgery. The following day she was in a coma. She would take what seemed to be her last breath and my grandpa would say, "She's gone..." and then 20-30 seconds later, she would take another, followed by my grandpa, "There, She's gone..." It happened again. I've never been around someone who was dying. I guess this is what happens.

My mom recalled the week before she died, Nana saying, "Oh, I know how my funeral is going to happen. It's all planned out in the green folder." "Okay, yeah sure..." says my mom, kind of blowing off her mom's seemingly silly and random remarks. Upon her death, my mom, remembering that statement about the folder, wanted to respect her mom's wishes. She decides to search all of Nana's files. She kept lots of files: addresses, letters, quotes, verses, stories. Anything and everything that ever meant anything from or about anyone she ever cared about...ever. The folders she kept them in? All green. My mom searched through them all. Twice. She found incredible little sayings scribbled on pieces of paper, a story written by my oldest cousin when he was young, and an incredible and humorous poem written by Tiny about what would be written on Maxine's gravestone, which was shared at Nana's "viewing"/memory-sharing time.

My mom, getting frustrated that she couldn't find Nana's funeral plans, starts praying and pleading with God. Just then, my mom experiences God's still small voice, saying, "Green Bible." "But no, God, she said green folder..." "Green Bible," came the voice again. Not completely understanding because they already flipped through all the bibles, my mom goes for the first bible she sees. The next thing she knows, it hits here like a slap to the forehead, "Green Bible." She picks up the green bible. Opens it up. Written in it reads a very simply programmed funeral for my Nana by my Nana. In it, reads, "read poem - poem found in bible." Sure enough, the poem was in there. Here it is:

I am standing upon the seashore.

A ship at my side spreads her white

sails to the morning breeze and starts

for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until at length

she hangs like a speck of white cloud

just where the sea and sky come

to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says;

"There, she is gone!"

"Gone where?"

Gone from my sight. That is all.

She is just as large in mast and hull

and spar as she was when she left my side

and she is just as able to bear her

load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her.

And just at the moment when someone

at my side says, "There, she is gone!"

There are other eyes watching her coming,

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;

"Here she comes!"

And this is life.

Whoa.

The service was incredible. Some funny little things that happened were the preacher quoting and talking about Michael Faraday, a person the tv show LOST based one of their characters off of. Us Larson kids love us some LOST. Nana's best friend's phone went off in the middle of the funeral. She didn't turn it off because, she says, "No one ever calls me!" She saw that it was from a friend who she hadn't talk to in a long time and called them back asking why they called her. This friend said that she didn't call her. Some of these little things were silly, but some people found encouragement in them. If someone can find encouragement in them, is that not God? Why couldn't it be?

In the funeral all five of us grandkids told Nana's life. We all took a page and read aloud the different parts of her life. My page read about how Nana met Grandpa and the things going on in her life during the time of them meeting. One of the things was a job that she had. She held a job for Trailways Bus Company. Small detail I just read over, right? Nothing profound about a bus company.

The same day as the funeral, my brother had a flight at 4 pm. He couldn't find anyone to take him. I offered that if no one could take him, I would as a last resort. No one could. And he tried. Still, no one. I drop him off at the airport. On my way home, I find myself listening to some kind-of corny worship cd my parents had in their car... but I was really enjoying it. Just really felt the presence of God there. And it happened like a movie... Some bus in front of the car in front of me in the left lane. The car moves over to the right lane and I speed up to make sure I was seeing it right. Something I would have just thought nothing of had I not read about it earlier that day at her funeral... Have you ever seen a Trailways Bus? Not me. Not until...

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...I did that day. And as I roll back into Maple Grove, MN, I feel an amazing sense of peace, as if some supernatural force took some time to take a ride in my car. I felt my shoulders being massaged. I felt someone saying, "I see you, Philip. I see all of you."

The rest of the day was a joyous time of reminiscing on Nana's life as we looked through 4 full volumes of Nana's (well done) scrap books covering all the way from her and Grandpa's birth through the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Volume 5 was her current project that my mom will have to finish. This was an incredible 4 days and I got to meet some incredible people from Nana's life. They were so encouraging.

And so... the sweet outdid the bitter, for death is overcome and God is present in our pain. Victory in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And what sweet eternal life Nana is tasting! Some grace was indeed left behind. Thanks be to God!

I praise God for her life! ...and her many reading glasses...

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