April 20 – “Wavey grass”

We made an early morning trip all the way to Spring yesterday.  We attended the funeral of a cousin.  I saw some people who were just toddlers last I could remember.  Oh, and they had kids there, too.  Nope.  Slow down.  At least I recognized the cousins I grew up with.  Larry was older than me, but he was one of the ones who got me started on collecting baseball cards back in the day.  Big influence there, for sure.  But his sister Julie was the one cousin who was my age, and we have kept in touch over the years. 

There was one rather odd yet beautiful thing we noticed while waiting for the graveside service to begin.  It was the grass.  I’m not sure what kind it was – not St. Augustine, for sure.  But when the wind blew (And it did blow.  One gust even distracted the pastor, but at the time he was reading a scripture about how the trees clapped in the presence of God … and they provided us an example), the grass looked like waves of water flowing across the ocean.  Wavey grass.  Very pretty. 

After the funeral we followed my older brother Jay (or, MUCH older brother, as I generally remind him) to the old Budde Cemetery on our old family homestead.  Much has changed there.  “Progress” has enveloped most of the area.  The cemetery is still intact, though, as is the old homestead house, although it has obviously been upgraded since the old days. 

Jay is our resident family genealogy expert.  However, one of Julie’s kids appears to be following in his footsteps.  The two of them regaled us with old family stories at lunch.  Speaking of following in footsteps … we also met Julie’s granddaughter.  She is playing college volleyball right now and loves it.  Apparently she has Olympic aspirations.  I told her our granddaughter was just learning volleyball.  She got excited and was really hopeful that Cailyn would carry on that family tradition.

After the easy drive up there – it took us just over an hour – we were looking forward to a pleasant drive home.  Well, not so much.  Everyone who had been sleeping in for their Good Friday holiday was now on the road.  And they invited their brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and everyone else they knew.  Traffic was terrible.  Of course three wrecks and the usual construction delays didn’t help matters any.  And Google Siri’s alternative route to avoid traffic took us almost through Crosby, so Chris just plowed ahead.  It took us two hours to get home.  Needless to say, Chris was exhausted.  She managed to get the roast in the crockpot for our family Easter lunch today, but she didn’t make it to the end of the Astros game.  I assured her I would do the viewing for her so she could rest easy. 

Romans 10:13 says, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Father, walk with Larry and Julie and their family as they mourn their mom.  Amen.