This evening finds me tired, thankful and very reflective. Today was a big day for our family in that we buried my Grandma and Grandpa on my mom’s side. My dear grandma died a few years ago and the love of her life just died last month. The cemetery was available to place them today and since it is just our family and aunt and uncle we are able to work on a short notice schedule. We met at 2:30, walked around the cemetery where my dad’s dad is and many of my parents friends and their parents growing up are buried. Walking through a cemetery is always kind of a poignant time of reflection and thought. This one guy has a car and a cat etched into his headstone. Someone else had a smiley face, others had verses, names, dates, and various distinguishing marks. That’s it. You live your whole life and it ends up in a few feet plot of land and you mark your whole life onto a piece of stone. We were talking about what ours would say and various topics around that. Every person buried there once walked this earth and probably looked in a cemetery at some juncture. And that season of aging and death probably seemed so far away.Is my life marked as a life that loves the Lord? What is my legacy? What will people talk about or speculate on my life? What is important? Moreover… what isn’t important?
It is amazing that Gavin and I are here, mid-twenty’s just a few months into marriage, friends are having little babies. We stand here hopeful with the rest of our life ahead of us. We are the result of generations and the future of generations. Someone will look me up in geneology and see my headstone some day. Prayerfully they will know that their great great grandparents loved the Lord. Like my prayer earlier today, that I am a good steward of the life and legacy the Lord has given me. I can’t imagine being 89. How fast the time will go.
So as I finish this week I am reminded of a poem that my grandma would recite to us. She is my last remaining grandparent and is a blessing to my life. This poem is sad but very sweet and it for some reason it just seems to fit right now…
Little Boy Blue
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place—
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.
