Memories of Edna

Whenever someone dies, I find myself dredging up all the memories of my interactions with that person. It is usually a bittersweet experience. The memories are almost always good, but the finality of being separated from them for the rest of my earthly life makes me feel sober. Edna was buried yesterday, but memories of her are still present during most of my waking hours.

Edna told me once, perhaps in response to something I said: "I think my mind works more like a man's mind." As I recall, she said this in the context of being able to visualize how things work, and how to put them together. She could organize well and work efficiently. Remembering this blesses me. I have thought the same thing about myself, although my abilities and disabilities lie in very different areas than Edna's did. I'm especially glad to see that Edna could think like a man and be a godly woman as well.

I remember also a time when Edna decided it was time to adopt a new stance toward the task of teaching adult Sunday School classes. She believed she was unable to teach because she didn't know how to study. The prospect was so daunting for her that she had trouble eating and sleeping normally when she had to do it occasionally. But there came a time when she said yes to teaching Sunday School regularly because she thought the Lord wanted her to be willing. She studied a lot. By pre-arrangement, Hiromi and I stopped in one evening when the house was quiet. Everyone was in bed except Edna, who was up late studying her Sunday School lesson.

When Hiromi was new to our church, Edna cooked Sunday dinner for him most Sundays. He had a standing invitation to be there for their 1:00-sharp noon meal. Being prompt was a family habit.

Before we got married, Hiromi had trouble finding someone to prepare a wedding suit for him. Although she did not really want to make a practice of custom suit-making, she agreed to do it for Hiromi, and made him a very neat, nicely fitting suit that he still wears. She had just made one for her son Arthur, and used that suit pattern as a guide for Hiromi's suit.

Edna took it upon herself to keep in touch with people who were in Christian service away from home. Nearly every week, each one got a letter from her. As the number of people away from home increased and the process of using carbon paper became more cumbersome, Menno bought a photocopy machine for her when they were still not in common use elsewhere so that she could manage more easily.

In recent years Menno and Edna set up a thrift store in a metal building they constructed for that purpose. Items are not priced, and people leave donations as they wish. The proceeds go to support our church's Christian schools. I don't have clear memories of dollar amounts donated to the school, but I remember a figure over $1,000, and I'm thinking that size donation may have been made several times a year. Since the family business is refuse disposal, they find treasures among other people's castoffs, and the items can be recycled in the best sense of the word--by being used "as is" by a new owner.

When they moved into their retirement home, Edna and one of her sons enrolled in a landscaping class offered by the country extension service so that they could create an attractive landscape.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing Edna did is acquire a ham radio license so that she could communicate with her son in Central America, who lived where regular phone service was unavailable. Studying for the licensing exams was hard work, and sometimes she wondered if she could pass. But she did, and she learned to use the radio lingo like a pro.

Edna had regrets, and she talked about them sometimes, believing that maybe doing so would help another person avoid them. In our Sunday School class she told us one day several decades ago that she didn't want to wear any masks ever again. "I want to be open about who I really am," she said. "I'd better get started now because I don't have much time left." Heart problems may have brought this home to her.

One of my favorite memories is the time when Edna's widowed father married Lucy, a grandmother in the church that was home to me when I taught school in Ohio. I was privileged to be one of the few non-family members invited to the small wedding, which was held in the basement of Lucy's daughter's home. Edna was there, probably with Menno, and after the service, she presented her father and his new bride with matching jackets which she had made for them. They happily wore them during the reception and when they left for their honeymoon. That wedding blended two families of adult children that came to genuinely enjoy each other, and they had regular family reunions for many years. Perhaps they still do.

My mother considered Edna a wonderful close friend. The time Edna came to visit after my mother's heart surgery was eagerly anticipated and recalled fondly afterward. "Edna's a real prayer warrior," she confided to me once, when she talked about something that concerned both Edna and my mother.

At Edna's funeral, people talked about how well Edna used her time and abilities to bless others, especially to support others in their ministries. That neatly sums up much of what I want to remember about Edna. I don't expect to ever leave a legacy like hers. But I'd like to do as well with the gifts and opportunities I have as she did with hers. I'd like to live without masks, and show hospitality to those "Hiromis" who come to our church. I'd like to be able to be a godly woman, even if I can't help sometimes thinking like a man. I want to be willing to try jobs that I don't feel competent doing, if I sense the Lord directing me to proceed in faith. I'd really like to be organized and punctual too, but perhaps that would be asking too much of the Lord. I'm pretty sure that making a quilt for each of my children and grandchildren would be too much to expect too. Oh, and facing the end calmly, at home, with my family enjoying their time together around me and the expectation of heaven very real--that would be truly wonderful. I'm glad Edna could experience that.