Grandmas Funeral

Happy day. Happy, not to dismiss the solemn mood that is funeral day. We'll find happiness in any day. Yeah. And Grandma would want us to be happy, wouldn't she?

She would. I know Dad said, should he wear blue jeans? I said, if you want to, because when he met Mom, she only had blue jeans and one dress.

It's gonna be a long day here at the church building. We got the kids snacks, nice things that Grandma had, I guess. More pictures and memorabilia. Water bottles. This has all got to go. Incidentally, that right there, right there, is where Rebecca and I met. That's where your mom and I met. I was sitting on that curb as a 17-year-old. Maybe I was 16. Was I 16 or 17 when you walked up to me and we met?

16. Did you see Grandma and her cowgirl yet?

Yes. Cowgirl or an equestrian?

Cowgirl.

Goodness, you're so tall to me. You're a giant. Look at this guy. Oh, are you cheating? You might be cheating.

No, I'm done. I'm not. I'm flat on the ground. Don't make me wear heels. Remember the fireworks?

Surely not.

Yeah, remember? You guys knocked over the stands.

Oh, there was fireworks, man. I forgot about that.

And you guys were running this way, and I'm like, is this part of the plan?

No.

I'm like, why are we running?

I am Justin Rhodes. I am Beth's favorite son. For those of you know hers, you know she didn't have a birth son. But I did marry her lovely daughter, and she adopted me as her own. That was one of our favorite things about her, is she took me in as her own, so much so that when Rebecca and I got in any kind of dispute, she took my side. And she would say, "You love him more than me, don't you?" She would never answer. She just laughed. It's proof. I'm just playing. She loved her daughters dearly. They're everywhere in her house. If you don't believe it, they're on her phone, they're on her screensaver. She loved them fiercely. The last text I got from Grandma, you know, she was being transferred over to the Elizabeth House, into day's cares. This was a very special text. She said, "Thank you for taking care of my daughter." Again, she loved her daughters and wanted to see to that. I sat there in a minute. I was out in the field doing some chores. I had a moment alone. And I was sitting there and thinking about that, and what am I gonna reply? I replied, "She's easy to love." And thank you for what you did in that part. If I say grandma, I'm talking about Beth, all right? I refer to grandma 'cause of the little kids. Grandma, she was open-minded even as she grew older. She was always a learner. Rebecca and I are on a health journey. She dragged grandma along with us, and she went along with us on that, began eating healthier, later in her life, and it led her to become a chicken tender. She took care of her chickens and loved it, and I was so proud of her. I actually made a film about her one time because she was such an inspiration. I wanted to share her with the world. And so I was following along with her on chores one day, and I asked her this question. I said, "Grandma, what about these chickens reminds you of yourself?" This was actually a leading question. I was thinking she was gonna say, Well, I'm like a chicken because I wake up at dawn and I go to sleep at dusk and I work all day long, nonstop. She was a ferocious hard worker. That's not what she said. I thought maybe she might say, well, I'm chatty like a chicken and I'm very social. And that's why all you are here, right? She's very social and fun to be around. That's not what she said. She sat there and thought about it for a minute. I said, goodness, what is she going to say? I thought this was an obvious— She said, "Well, they kind of pick on each other, and I guess I pick on Bruce a little." And all y'all are laughing 'cause you've been around them enough. They picked on each other, didn't they? Especially if you worked with them. But it wasn't this— it was never this malicious, hard picking, okay? And they got it all out. And perhaps that's how they could be so successful in their marriage and make it 52 years. So we look up to them for that. And Big Daddy— sorry, Big Daddy is Bruce. And he's nodding his head, yes. So they were a good example for us in that way. Speaking of Bruce, and the pastor spoke to it briefly, in the end Bruce was 3 things: flexible. We didn't know he could cook. He can cook. I guess somewhere back in the Marines they taught you how to cook and make a bed and whatever. He became flexible. Their roles shift. She cooked every meal, cleaned up everything. You couldn't help her. You tried, she wouldn't say, "Get out of here. I'm going to clean this up." Their roles shift, and he did all that and never complained. He became a servant and served her tirelessly night and day. And then in the very end, very loyal. She, you know, 9 days in end-of-day care at the Elizabeth House, he was there every minute. I mean, the one minute was there, you know, he was there right by her side. And I think a good example to me and a good example to all of us, if Rebecca were to go before me, I know now how to act. Bruce stepped it up and became— was a man, and he did the right thing there in the end. But also, like Rebecca, Beth was easy to love because of all that she did and all that she did for him. It was a given. She had done the dishes for 50 years. I mean, it's the least she could do, right? She was easy to love, and that's why y'all are here. And I'm sure all of you have moments and times where that woman was very easy to love. She also said something else in that last text to me, and I'm wrapping it up here. She said, "I'll see you on the other side." She believed, and she believed fiercely. And no matter what you believe, it's something to consider when you see someone who can believe so strongly that in the end she was bold and brave enough to let go, that she trusted that there was another side. The Cherokee, incidentally, have no word for goodbye. They only have a word that is similar to our "see you later." They believed that when you passed on in this life, if you had made a friend, you would meet— if you didn't meet them again in this life, you would meet them in the next. So to Grandma and Beth and Mom, we all say, we'll see you on the other side. Deception.

She is with you, in fact. She's experiencing things we could only dream about because she's in the presence of Jesus. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.

At the reception, I had Austin go around and have people share, if they wanted to, nice things about Grandma.

I loved Having the opportunity to have Beth in my life, she was always smiling every time I saw her, every single time I ever saw her, and she was just a huge light, and I'm gonna miss her so much, but I'm very thankful that for the time that I knew her, she was just such a bright spot. She was great. So, miss you, Beth. I had the pleasure of being teammates with Beth many, many late afternoons when I was cooking for Justin and Rebecca and their family, and she would come right at the moment when I was realizing I wasn't quite sure I was going to be able to actually put dinner on the table and clean up the whole mess from the whole day. And she'd come in the door and say, oh, I'll do the dishes. And it was really sweet. And, um, what a wonderful, amazing woman. I'm really grateful to have gotten to know her a little bit.

Every time I went up to go see Miss Beth, she would never let me leave her house empty-handed. She would make a request for eggs that I would be glad, you know, gladly take up to her. But again, she'd never let me leave the house empty-handed. If it was a couple bites of brownie that she'd make, a jar of pickles, cucumbers from her garden, she was always giving and always thinking of others. And she even thought of to give me to see if there was a pair of boots that I could use that she wasn't going to wear anymore. And I wear those boots every day to work. And so Miss Beth lives on through all of us and through all of the things and her kindness that she shared with us. And I'm so blessed to know that I've gotten to have that little time to know her, to know— it didn't take long to figure out what a kind and wonderful person she was.

My name is Faith. I was the first granddaughter for Beth, and honestly, Grandma was my best friend. She raised me up until I was probably like around 5 or 6. We just hung out every day making cookies or having really cool bubble baths or watching movies. And as I grew older, Grandma would just do the same thing, hang out with me, and she'd always play me Christian music and we'd sing in the car. And we also had these Chick-fil-A CDs, and they would have these awesome fables and stories. She would always teach me the greatest lessons. I really did love Grandma, and I still do. She's my best friend, and I'm just thankful for the time that I got to have with her and the family time that we all had together. I might have been the first grandchild, but I definitely wasn't the last. There were tons more, and she loved us all so deeply, and I just know that we're all thankful for the time that we had with her.

So one time One time we went over to Justin and Rebecca's for a meal, and there was this couple there, and I hadn't been introduced to them yet. And I looked at the woman and I said, "This has to be Rebecca's mom." So we got to chatting, and they were working on their house, building it up the hill. I mean, refinishing it on the inside.

And she said—

and we were building a house too— she said, "Would you like some paint?" And I just met this person, and so I went up to the house and she gave us— they gave us gallons of paint left over from their project, which we ended up using on ours. So that was our introduction to very generous, hardworking people.

All right, well, the first time that I can really remember meeting Beth is my parents bought a house right behind them and we moved in there, and all the kids in the neighborhood told me about these 3 girls that lived behind us, and they were all Swedish girls, you know, blonde hair, blue eyes. And they told us one Christmas that they all dance around the Christmas tree with no clothes on. So I said, "Forget Santa Claus, we're going to the Brorstrom house," you know. That was my first encounter. Then the last time, the preacher was saying she likes to sing. So we all went to the rest area in Bristol. We sing for the people traveling through. Beth wants to sing "Amazing Grace." "I can sing 'Amazing Grace.' Let me sing 'Amazing Grace.'" So we said, "Okay, you sing 'Amazing Grace.'" So she gets up there and I said, "Do you need the words?" "No, no, I've got it all fine." And she sings about 2 words and goes, "Oh, I forgot." It's the truth.

That was the truth.

Yeah, she forgot the words.

There are so many stories growing up with Beth, Bethy, Bessie, or Sissy. And I did not like her. She was not my favorite sister. As a matter of fact, we used to lock the door on her or we booby-trapped her room, my younger sister and I. But when I had a baby—

Well, you didn't tell them about the room. They had 3 bedrooms, but they were like just side by side. You know, you could just go from one to the other. It was more like a closet than a bedroom. My house had bigger closets than they had bedrooms.

But the whole point is, is that when I had a child, my firstborn, is that Beth helped me a lot and showed me what to do. And along the way, between my friend Fred and Beth and Bruce and some other ways, I come to know the Lord and make accept Jesus as my Savior. And through my life, it's the wild child of the family. She's always been able to keep me settled, to keep me down. Now, do we have some other stories? Oh yeah.

So if you want me to tell you a couple more stories, I just want to— I want to say before we cut away is, you know, people ask how I fit into this family, and I tell them that I'm the twin brother that's the only and only child.

The only child.

The only child.

He was the neighbor. Yeah, he wasn't my child. So one of my favorites is we would dress our life, and we would drive around in cars and go shopping, and people would say, are you twins? And we would go, oh yeah, we're twins. There's a lot of good memories and a lot of good things, but I'm going to miss her tremendously.

Honey, why don't you tell about the time that I had to leave our home in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and go out to seminary to start my doctoral work, and you were alone. You were there all by yourself.

Yeah, yeah, we had, uh, Georgia gone out to do doctoral work, and I was— we had already resigned our church where we were pastoring, and so Here I was stuck in Palm Beach Gardens without my husband and without my church, and Beth and Bruce lived 2 blocks down the street. And so every evening about 5 o'clock, Beth would call and she'd say, "Okay, we got chicken tonight. You wanna come down and have chicken?" The next night it'd be, "We got pork chops tonight. You wanna come down and have a pork chop?" And she fed me for 6 weeks almost every night. And there's just not that many people who are that kind. And generous Beth was.

Well, and it wasn't obviously just the food.

It was the fellowship.

You were lonesome, and I was as well, and it was so great for me to know that you were home with buddies, you know, that were being kind. So that's just one experience. I'll never forget the day that— now this is for Bruce in advance— Bruce, in advance, he and I were having a conversation about about the new building that we were building for our church in West Palm Beach, Florida. And I said, well, Bruce, I'm so thrilled that you're the contractor that's building this. And he said, yeah, Beth and I have been praying about how we need to give back for this and, you know, be a part of the— because they were members of the church— to give. And it probably wouldn't be appropriate to say the amount, but anyway, he said, we've determined that the Lord wants us to give this them out, and it was a huge gift. That's just who they are, is just generous and a part of the Lord's work because that's who they are in Christ. So special friends, love them to death, and we're looking forward to seeing Beth in heaven.

My favorite memories with Grandma were when we would come to town and she would always talk with me and sit with me, and she got really excited with me about my pregnancy and just watching Whalen grow up, and I just really enjoyed all of our time together.

After that, we came home, had cousin JD, had a great visit. You know, funerals are bittersweet. Bitter in that you've lost someone, and sweet in that it's sort of like a family reunion. And so it's sad and happy at the same time. It's good to see everybody. It's also a very very— well, you get a sense of closure after a funeral. And after 2 years battle plus battle with ALS, closure has been a long time coming. So we're thankful for that. Thank you from the bottom of our heart for walking with us in our real-life journey. The good, the bad, and the ugly. That's what this show is about, documenting our real life, and therefore you guys become real friends to us, and we appreciate you more than ever during a time like this. So for that, I say thank you, thank you, thank you, and happy day.