Keep your fork

On Sunday, we laid The Hubster’s Mema to rest. Her church referred to it as “moving day.” It was the first time we took the 4 older children to a funeral, though this was the second of Saffi’s short life. I’m not big on the idea of children at funerals- they can be rather scary. But, we figured with Mema being in her 90s, that this would probably be the most gentle introduction to an overall sad yet inescapable situation.

The children behaved beautifully. Mira and Tessa walked up to her casket with their Daddy. We had prepared Mira as well as we could and once her curiosity to see Mema one last time was settled, that was it. Tessa on the other hand wanted to touch her (mostly, I think, because their cousin bragged about touching her when she was dead).

The Hubster stooped down to her eye level and asked how she would feel if people started poking her when she was trying to rest with God. Tessa’s eyes grew round and she told him she wouldn’t like that one bit. The Hubster nodded in agreement and they wished Mema a safe trip to heaven. Tessa’s eyes couldn’t help but linger on the fork Mema was clutching, though. Tessa wanted that fork.

The presence of the fork had the room mumbling in confusion. Mema had no real affinity for silverware, so why the fork? This passage in her remembrance card explained it all:

When they bury me, I want my old Bible in one hand and a fork in the other.I have been thinking about all of the church dinners and banquets that I attended through the years, I couldn’t begin to count them all. But one thing sticks in my mind. At those really nice get-togethers, when the meal was almost finished, a server or maybe the hostess would come by to collect the dirty dishes. I can hear the words now. Sometimes, at the best ones, somebody would lean over my shoulder and whisper, `You can keep your fork.’ And do you know what that meant? Dessert was coming! “It didn’t mean a cup of Jell-O or pudding or even a dish of ice cream. You don’t need a fork for that. It meant the good stuff, like chocolate cake or cherry pie!

This is what I want you to say. I want you to tell them that I kept my fork because the best is yet to come.

Mema loved quite a few things on this earth, dessert and The Lord were two of em.

I’m keeping my fork too