We love you, Aunt Louise!

Today we would be celebrating Great Aunt Louise's 90th birthday. Unfortunately she passed away just 2.5 weeks shy of this major milestone in her life, but she was ready to go. She told me several months ago when I was talking to her about her big birthday coming up that she didn't want to live to 90 and wanted to know why she was sticking around so long. Aunt Louise peacefully returned to her Heavenly Father around 5:30pm on Friday, November 12, 2010. She had just been moved to a nursing home 2 weeks prior because her health was fading fast.

Great Aunt Louise was one of the last surviving of her friends, so her viewing and burial were small and mostly consisted of our family and a few close friends.

The graveside funeral is one I'm sure none of us will forget. We couldn't help but laugh about it (and I wish I had pictures, I'll have to get them from my father-in-law). Aunt Louise was buried in a hillside cemetery in Midway, Utah on Saturday, November 20, 2010. We tried our best to prepare for cold, wet weather, but none of us were prepared for what hit us right at the time the funeral was to take place. It was seriously the fastest funeral any of us have ever been to (it took 20 minutes, maximum)! The wind picked up. Hard. The snow started blowing and pelted us in the face. It was pretty unpleasant, and extremely cold. Those of us who could (who weren't pallbearers) sat bundled in blankets on the chairs that were set out for our family. Several of us had a kid bundled up with us so we could try to keep each other warm. Dad made the conduction of the funeral service very brief, and Dar had the opportunity to dedicate the grave. He did the best he could with the pelting snow and wind, and gave a beautiful dedicatory prayer. As soon as the prayer was done, we had to sit for a quick picture of our cold, wet, little group and then went into town for some dessert and hot chocolate to warm our freezing limbs. Once we got into town and settled in for our hot chocolate the weather calmed down a little bit. Go figure.
We couldn't help but laugh about it because we thought the weather was Aunt Louise's way of letting us know she got the last laugh. She was the kind of person who never wanted to inconvenience anyone, and would have been irritated with herself for all of us taking our time out for her. So we took the nasty weather as a sign from her that we shouldn't stay very long mourning over our loss. We're really going to miss her humor.

The house already seems emptier without her there. Dinnertime just isn't the same. We're really going to miss her stories of adventures she had with her husband, Bill before he died, and experiences she had as a child. About 2 weeks before she was moved to a nursing home, she told me she had a dream that Dar & I had 8 children and she was concerned about how we'd feed all those little mouths! Haha. She was always concerned about the grocery bill we have at our house, even before we got married. Her concern about our eating habits just made us laugh. Although Aunt Louise never had any children of her own, she considered us (Dar's family) her family, and we're really going to miss her. We love you Aunt Louise! Happy 90th birthday!!