Celebration of life...

My Aunt Kathy sent me the program from Aunt Helen's memorial service in Jacksonville, Florida. I cried...I laughed...I cried some more.

Here is the cover...Note how she matured from bespectacled, conservative mother to sun hat, contact-wearing beach babe. :)



Included in the program was a photocopy of Aunt Helen's handwritten funeral plans. I love #3:


The title in the actual program of the eulogy is "say what needs to be said" in keeping with her plans. # 5 says "Everyone stand and sing a praise (after all, Jesus is in the service!)". It's just like Aunt Helen to direct things from Heaven. :)

There is also a full page that is a brief biography of her life. If she'd only written an autobiography. The world would have been blessed by her story. This excerpt sums her up well:

Helen loved Life! No matter what her children and grandchildren were involved in she was there in the middle of it. She loved picnics, traveling, any adventure, and just plain having fun! There have been many times she had to be called down along with the grandchildren (I love that!) Even in the past few years as we took our annual family lake trips she was in the water playing and on the jet ski.

Helen loved her family, church and friends. But most of all she loved her Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. She lived a life of goodness, laughter and kindness. She truly was a Proverbs 31 woman, a true testimony of God's Grace and Love to all who knew her.

Aunt Helen, I love you...And I promise to carry on the torch of Christ, that all might know Who He is and how much He loves us all. Thank you for being you. And for loving me...I'll see you in Papa's arms...In our Papa's House...

Maybe on our Papa's beach....

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