My Great Aunt

died last week at the age of 98. She just slipped away quietly in her sleep. I have to think she planned it that way because she planned everything.

And with grace

and elegance.

And today after her funeral there was a luncheon and the menu was exactly as she would have directed, it was almost an eery feeling. The caterer had worked with her many times and she said she felt she knew exactly what my aunt would have wanted.

Her daughters were a little distraught that the floral arrangement on the casket was beginning to wilt. They knew it would have irritated their mother. They thought about replacing it or clipping it, but in the end left it. I said from a distance no one would know, but somehow we knew my aunt was aware and probably just a bit miffed.

My great aunt was a woman with very high expectations for all she knew. This often caused family or friends or employees to grimace or exit and count to ten, and yet there was a respect for her and this attitude. You knew when you were in her company that not only would she give you her undivided attention, but that the surroundings would be to the upmost standards also. And because of this code she lived by, that all things must be just so, she seemed almost regal. And yet she was very accepting of the pitfalls we all may have taken along the way.

One of her grandson's spoke and he had random bits of trivia that he remembered of his grandmother. She read him stories, she told him he could be whatever he wanted to be, she joined him in a disco lesson, she made the best fudge, and she even smoked from a hookah (last year at the age of 97). The portrait he painted was one of a lady who carved a world as perfectly as she could, but allowed the freedom of movement within that life.

And the eulogy spoke of a life well lived, for at 98 that is to be expected. She was never really ill, she just had the deteriorating organs of longevity. And truly this was a celebration. A celebration of all those years and those lives she touched. And sadness for those who remained, but not for her because she had had the opportunity to live such a long and wonderful life.

Somehow those funerals, for 98 year old individuals, are not sad. They are tributes and testimonies. It's the funerals of lives we deem gone too soon that tear our hearts. It's the void they leave in their wake.

But it is not for us to decide. And forever that will be the question in our minds and hearts, will it not?

I will not post again, at least not this week, on funerals or death, but I felt compelled to write today because my aunt's funeral was very much an expression of who she was, surrounded by those who knew and loved her. And it struck me so completely that she left this world exactly on her terms and in the manner in which she would approve. It doesn't always work out that way, but it certainly does not surprise me that this was her last call.