Grama Myrtle

My Grama Myrtle has been on my mind a lot lately so I decided it must be a sign to write about her. Myrtle was my neighbor lady the entire time I was growing up. In fact, I was born on her birthday. She was 63 years old when I was born. Our age difference never mattered in our relationship. We talked about anything and everything. She was a person in my life who made me feel like I was nothing less than wonderful. Every child needs a Myrtle in their life. Toward the end of her life I actually prayed for her passing. She could no longer care for herself and I only had selfish reasons for wanting her to stay. I often wondered what life lesson I was supposed to learn from Myrtle. Looking back there were many, but the lesson with the biggest impact came after her death.
After Myrtle passed away I wanted Jonathon to be a part of the experience of Myrtle's death since we have such a large family and experiencing death escapes no one, disabled or not.
I didn't take him to the funeral with me because I knew I needed that time to deal with my grief, so I arranged for a family friend to bring Jonathon to the cemetery. We waited until everyone had left. I took Jonathon up to the grave site where two attendants were getting ready to lower Myrtle's casket. Jonathon walked up to the grave site, looked into the freshly dug ground and echoed "I don't know if they dug it right, but they've certainly dug it deep!" I'm sure Myrtle was chuckling right along with me and the grave workers at that line from a Winnie The Pooh movie.
We were standing at the casket saying our last goodbyes, when Jonathon bent down and out of the glistening January snow pretended to gently pick something up. He walked toward me, holding his softly cupped hands out before him. I remember the sound of the crisp snow crunching under his small feet as he held out his hands to me and said, "do I have a pretty flower?" I responded "yes, it's a beautiful flower." He then turned away from me, walked over, and gently laid his imaginary bloom on top of Myrtle's casket. I was overcome with emotion.
Jonathon turned to me and said "Is that Myrtle going back to the dirt?" I was speechless. Looking back I guess it made sense to him that Myrtle was going into the ground, but he used the word "back," as in we originally came from the dirt. That incident made me realize there is greater understanding in that mind of his than we will ever truly know!