One Copper Penny

We buried Great Mom-Mom Isabelle this week. She was a valiant warrior against many rounds of cancer in many parts of her body. It took many years for cancer to try and get her, and she won most of the battles. But at 81 years, her body was just too tired from fighting 20+ years to just one disease.

Mom-Mom’s favorite flower was the yellow rose. So the funeral home and graveside were covered in them. Those flowers were the bright spot in the dreary day that reminded us of Mom-Mom’s spirit. Life was meant to be lived. And we were meant to be happy and cheerful and beautiful. I believe that now. I hope our daughter, who was named for this beautiful woman, understands this part of life too.

After the graveside service on Tuesday, the family gathered yellow roses from the casket. I now have them in a vase in my NEW home (which we purchased about 4 hours after Mom-Mom passed on July 20th, 2012). Family flew in from Maryland for the services. Some of them stayed here with us in the new house and they left their flowers. A week later, the flowers look as good as they did at the services.

I went to change the water tonight and I had a very strong voice telling me to drop a penny in the jar. That’s a saying or piece of advice for newlyweds but that certainly didn’t fit our situation with 12 years under our belt. So, I didn’t understand it, and I even said out loud, “Penny in a jar? What the hell does that mean?”

Ed asked me if I was talking to him (I wasn’t). But when I looked up to respond to him, sure enough, there was one lone penny sitting in a dish on the shelf in front of me. It was heads-up too, which of COURSE means good luck. I dropped the penny in the empty vase. I put Mom-Mom’s yellow roses back in, and I filled her with cool water.

Then I went to Google to figure out the true meaning. As it turns out, a penny in a flower vase does help the flowers due to some oxidation stuff I’ll never understand.

I don’t know what’s gonna happen. Maybe good luck for Ed, Izzi, and me? Maybe the flowers will last forever? Maybe I just now know that Mom-Mom can talk to me whenever she wants. I sure hope so, because my daughter can only benefit from her amazing wisdom and faith.