Donna’s Pilgrimage – on the road to beautiful

I just got back from a funeral.
I met a little (4′9″), old (80 something) red-haired Jewish woman walking the mall almost a year ago. She immediately let me into her life. We had lunch, talked often, I saw pics of her family, and her family gatherings. And when I was in Nazareth in Oct. with my mom who had just had heart surgery, Bea would call to check on mom, and encourage me to do whatever was necessary for mom, and I would never be sorry. Bea was amazing..she was so full of life and joy, and she did amazing things…tutored reading, threw parties, cooked gourmet meals, sewed amazing clothes, exercised, read voraciously, and loved extravagantly to the very end of her life here.
She died Wed. morning. Her daughter, whom I had never met, called to tell me. Today I went to her funeral and learned so much more about this woman. She married the love of her life, and shortly after her children were born, he died. She raised her children as a single mom. Some of those children died also. She graduated from college…she was also the only one in her fam to finish hs, then went on to get her masters. She “adopted” hundreds of handicapped children, made sure they were taught the skills necessary to live independently, and paid for much of it herself. She tirelessly advocated for group homes, and worked in many.
She volunteered at her granchildren’s schools when her children had to work. She was never too busy to show she cared.
She made people her priority. She taught her children the Word, and lived her “religion”, although not a single person would have called her religious. She knew how to pray, and spent lots of time doing it. One of her faorite expressions was…”I’ll be dead for a long time, I’ll rest then”.
I want to be like her when I grow up….No, I want to grow up now, and live that life. It was a privilege to take part in an old Jewish tradition of adding a shovel of dirt to the grave as a last act of caring for the person being buried.