“Everything I Needed to Know about Life, I learned from Grandma Mabel”

Last Saturday, Grandma Mabel moved to Heaven. I shared this eulogy at her funeral service on Tuesday.

You’ve probably heard the poem “Everything I Needed to Know about Life, I Learned from Kindergarten.” After twenty years in education, following in my mom’s footsteps as a teacher and administrator, I’d say something different: everything I needed to know about life, I learned from Grandma Mabel.

Aging as Gift

I’ll never forget joining Grandma for breakfast on my 40th birthday. I shared that I wasn’t really sure how I felt about reaching this milestone birthday. I’ll never forget the words she shared with me: Aging, she said, is the blessing not everyone gets to enjoy. She went on to say how every gray hair, every wrinkle is proof God kept His promise to carry us to another day —

“to see you grow up, get married, become a mother. To hold my great-grandbabies.”

Even after breaking her hip and collarbone, even as her body grew more fragile, she told us in the hospital she wasn’t ready for Heaven yet — not out of fear, but because she said she was “just nosy,” wanting to keep watching her grandkids and great-grandkids grow. She knew that aging and becoming more fragile still meant that you were on this side of Heaven and could make more memories with your family.

And she didn’t just want that time with us — she knew exactly how to spend it.

Being Fully Present

Grandma had a gift for being fully present. Every Sunday lunch, she’d ask about our weeks and keep asking, drawing out every detail — the ones that made you cry and the ones that made you laugh.

“Let’s not clean the kitchen yet,” she’d say. “Come sit down and spend time together.”

She was more than a grandmother. She was one of our best friends. And that care went both ways — the fitted sheets on the couch, the 7 Up and ramen noodles when we were sick as kids became, decades later, our chance to care for her the same way in her final years by making her meals, helping her with household chores, and helping her be as comfortable as possible. 

Myth of 18 Summers

Not long ago, I confessed to Grandma my struggle with the “18 summers” idea — the pressure that you only really have your kids for eighteen years, so you’d better cram in a lifetime of memories before they’re gone. She looked at my mom, then at me, and said something I’ll never forget:

“Look at each of you. We continue to grow closer and make memories through each passing year. It doesn’t end when your kids graduate from high school. When genuine loving care and faith in the Lord are there, our relationships continue to grow and thrive for all of the years the Lord gives us this side of Heaven.”

Twenty-four hours later, she had a stroke. And even then, with slurred speech, she was still teaching me — reminding me of Solomon’s words: “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” Scripture doesn’t describe an 18-year clock. Psalm 78 calls us to tell the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord — not for eighteen years, but generation to generation. Grandma Mabel lived that. There was a season when she cared for me, and a season for me to care for her, and every season mattered.

A Living Legacy of Faith

And this is really the heart of the legacy Grandma Mabel left us: you never outgrow the need to grow in your faith. In her last years — years most people think of as winding down — Grandma’s faith was still moving forward. We did Bible studies together, on angels and on Heaven itself, right up until she moved there last Saturday. She experienced the presence of angels twice near the end, and even when we couldn’t find every answer in Scripture, that only made her want to keep searching, still asking the Holy Spirit to teach her something new.

That’s what a living legacy of faith looks like — not a faith you arrive at and set down, but one you keep building, season after season, so the next generation has something solid to stand on. Along with that quiet, ongoing pursuit of the Lord came a quiet generosity toward anyone less fortunate — never wanting the attention, just wanting to help. Both were things she handed down to us, not by lecturing us about them, but simply by living them in front of us for decades.

Grandma Mabel’s Final Days This Side of Heaven

A little while later, another stroke came — and this time, she wouldn’t recover. Instead of anger, Grandma embraced it as the Lord’s timing. In her remaining days, she focused on two things: praising the Lord and telling every one of us how much she loved us.

“Love you” — that’s what she said, over and over, to everyone who came to her side. Our hearts were broken, knowing this was one of our last conversations, and yet we were fully loved at the same time.

We sang to her — “I Want to Stroll Over Heaven,” which had been an anthem of hope in our family for decades. This here and now is not the end. We were made for eternity and would be together again in Heaven. The stroke kept her from saying the words, but she mouthed them anyway.

And the last song we sang together was “Amazing Grace” — the perfect summary of her faith. No effort of ours could wash away our sin; only Jesus’ grace could do that. And now, we know, Grandma Mabel is with Jesus, with Grandpa Don, and with others we’ve loved and lost, praising Him forever — with just as much joy in her ten-thousandth day there as she had on her first.

Grandma Mabel’s Legacy: A Meaningful Life

If Grandma Mabel could say one more thing to us, I believe it would be this: don’t wait for a ‘someday’ version of your faith. Keep building it, season by season, the way she did — and pass it down. A life lived following the Lord is a meaningful life.

That’s the legacy she’d want most for every person reading this blog — not just her family, but every one of you. If you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, please reach out to me. I would love to share this hope with you too — the same hope that carried Grandma Mabel through every season of her life and now carried her to Heaven with the Lord.