This week there has been rest from my writing: I will not be posting a food history entry, as my 94-year-old mother Pat Lutz went to be with her maker Jesus and her husband Buzz, last Monday night.  This has brought incredible joy to me; please join me in this celebration.

She will be greatly missed, but certainty of her present experience in heaven far outweighs any sense of loss.

Here are a few photos giving honor and tribute to her holy life (above is Mom with family members on her 90th birthday).  She loved her family and my father Buzzy-Baby-as my niece Cammie nicknamed him back in 1966, at the time of the picture to the right.

Good food and a healthy, well-exercised body were always important to her; thus, the skiing picture below with Dad (she skied until her early 80’s).

My mother was “love” personified. She loved the whole world with the purest of hearts, and all people loved her in return.  She had more friends than can possibly be numbered.  Here is a photo with her life-time friend Doris Sherburne, who at 97 has outlived her.

My grandpa Floyd passed on in 1975.  What I remember most about my beloved grandparent is that before he died, he would always stop and hug me, telling me to slow down.  His funeral was held in the tiny community hall, in our small village of East Glacier Park in northern Montana.  As I viewed him laying in his open casket, these words flooded my heart:

Spinning solemn faces,
sitting in small isles
of empty spaces,
a wall of words being said,
separating the living
from the dead,
slipping through I see
the vast unity
between you and me.

I felt his closeness in a most tangible way on that awesome day; even now I often hear him whispering, over my left shoulder, his comforting words: “Slow down, Peg, slow down.”  Death didn’t take my grandpa away, but mysteriously it gave me an innermost proximity to him, for there is no distance in the spirit realm, such as we know in the natural.

Mom’s departure has brought this same glory; there is just peace and immense security, with great anticipation of my whole family’s reunion in heaven shortly, when we will be at one with our God and Savior Jesus.  My prayer is that we will all be together, including those that follow this blog.