“Peace, prosperity, liberty and morals
have an intimate connection.”

- Thomas Jefferson

My grandmother, Elizabeth "Lizey" Burleson Stewart Ray, passed away Wednesday morning in her sleep at 101 years of age, just a couple of months shy of making it to 102. I visited her when I was down in Missouri a few weeks ago and was able to hold hands with her for a few minutes but she wasn't aware of too much that was going on.

She'd been that way for quite some time but had been livelier of late and more interactive, probably due to a change in her medication. This was a good thing but also raised a tough question for the family about what to say if she asked where my father — who died more than a year ago — was. It was decided we'd just say "Oh, he's home, Lizey" and let it go at that. She'd been devastated when her oldest son died several years ago and no one thought it would do any good to tell her about her youngest boy.

We seldom lived near each other for most of my childhood. We'd see her a couple of times a year, usually, and a couple of summers we stayed with her at her lake place where my great-uncle Harvey would take us fishing out in his boat and tell us stories about the mischief my father and his brothers used to get into — almost all of which would end with Grandma's stern intervention. When I got older we talked more, especially after I got married and had kids of my own. Her faith was very important to her, and when we'd visit we could talk about her life and what it was like raising those four boys and two girls. I remember one time she told about the oldest boy getting very ill and having to go to the hospital; about how worried she was and how much she prayed; and how, when she walked out into the corridor outside his room she saw an angel and knew everything was going to be fine.

This morning I thought about that and of the time the family put on a big bash for her 85th birthday. There was a quite a crowd, even with accounting for her children, the 17 grandchildren and I don't know how many great-grandchildren. She had a lot to be proud of, and she was pretty pleased. I still remember her telling me, though, "So many of my friends have already gone home to be with the Lord. And they're probably wondering what happened to me!"

I'm sure they've been having a grand time getting caught up.

If we really think that home is elsewhere and that this life is a “wandering to find home,” why should we not look forward to the arrival?
— C.S. Lewis

If you see any references to a count-down here on this blog or on certain others it is all in relation to this:

Shivaree
Dictionary: shiv·a·ree (shĭv'ə-rē', shĭv'ə-rē')

n. Midwestern & Western U.S.
A noisy mock serenade for newlyweds. Also called regionally charivari, belling; Also called horning, serenade.

[Alteration of CHARIVARI.]

REGIONAL NOTE Shivaree is the most common American regional form of charivari, a French word meaning “a noisy mock serenade for newlyweds” and probably deriving in turn from a Late Latin word meaning “headache.” The term, most likely borrowed from French traders and settlers along the Mississippi River, was well established in the United States by 1805; an account dating from that year describes a shivaree in New Orleans: “The house is mobbed by thousands of the people of the town, vociferating and shouting with loud acclaim.... [M]any [are] in disguises and masks; and all have some kind of discordant and noisy music, such as old kettles, and shovels, and tongs.... All civil authority and rule seems laid aside” (John F. Watson). The word shivaree is especially common along and west of the Mississippi River. Its use thus forms a dialect boundary running north-south, dividing western usage from eastern. This is unusual in that most dialect boundaries run east-west, dividing the country into northern and southern dialect regions. Some regional equivalents are belling, used in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan; horning, from upstate New York, northern Pennsylvania, and western New England; and serenade, a term used chiefly in the South Atlantic states.

Oh, and the count-down is at 26.

For my birthday today Tiger Lilly gave me a writing assignment that she completed from her writer's exercise book, 3 a.m. Epiphany by Brian Kitely. It read:

This was an exercise in The 3 a.m. Epiphany that I thought would be interesting to do. The exercise was to take a phrase or saying (preferably one with a large variety of words in it) and form 15 sentences out of that saying. The words needed to adhere around a character in a situation that seems related to (but necessarily a response to) the author's original sentence. I managed to get a slightly silly pointless deep, meaningful story out of it. I used the following quote:

Two roads diverged in a wood and I,
I took the road less traveled by;
And that made all the difference.
— Robert Frost

I traveled by two roads.
I traveled in a wood.
Two roads traveled in a wood.
A difference in the wood made the roads diverge.
The two roads diverged.
The roads made all the difference.
I diverged in the wood.
I took the road less traveled by.
I made all the difference.
I traveled less in the wood.
The road and I diverged.
I took the difference and made the road that made the difference.
I made the road diverge in a wood.
The road and I diverged.
And that made all the difference.

Tiger Lilly's present reminded me of Peter Gabriel singing "The Book of Love." In turn I'll modify one of the lines in that song to say:

And you, you can write me anything.