October 17, 2008. A Friday.

Oma passed away today. She was an amazing woman. She has to be the strongest woman I have ever met.

She loved her family. They were everything to her. She was everything to them.

I met her for the first time a little over 8 years ago when The Hubby had taken me home to meet his family. We were already married and announced that we were expecting our first child.
For the record we got married first.

I will never forget that meeting. The home-made sausage. The bona soup. The potatoes. The sweet cookies they kept feeding us. The all-freaking-day sickness and hormones brought on by pregnancy.

During our conversation she asked me where my family came from. I had no clue what she meant. So I answered with what any other person would have said... We were Southern?.?. from Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. They laughed and laughed.

They came here from Germany. With two little boys and 7 months pregnant with their third child.

They knew no English. Their only family was Oma's Mother and Sister.

They knew that America was a place to provide opportunity for their family. You had to want it though. You had to seek it out. You had to work for it. Nothing is handed to you.

When they were children, after WWII, Russia went into their countries and put them and so many thousands of others into Concentration Camps. Oma survived with her Mother and her sister. She lost brothers and sisters and a father and aunts and uncles. If you ever went to Oma's home, even today, a calendar hangs with every one of those family members birthdays written in the calendar squares.

We lost more than a grandmother today. We lost a woman who gave strength to her family. A woman who taught three sons the meaning of hard work, determination, and the meaning of family. Those sons passed the lessons onto their children.

I have the incredible honor of being married to one of those grandchildren. Daily, I see him teach our children the importance of kindness, of loving one another. The importance of your family.

Daily I see her in him. She has left an amazing legacy.

I look at my two beautiful children and I can't help but to see Oma and Opa in them. To look into little Emily's and Thomas' eyes and see their history. And I see their future.

Oma taught me how worthwhile it is to know where you come from so that you know how amazing it is to be where you are.

She is going to be dearly missed. I know these last months she has been in agonizing pain. These last days her body just couldn't work hard enough to beat her heart. She had lived a long, hard life and God finally called her home and took away her pain. She is with her Jesus. She is with that family she remembered every year after year.

Father God, in the days ahead as the family gathers, be with us. As we celebrate the life of Oma, be with us. As we mourn our loss, be with us. Give us comfort and peace that only you can provide.

Amen.