Eulogy To Velma Ruedean “Grammy Rue”

A Eulogy To Velma Ruedean “Grammy Rue”

It just doesn’t seem real. The woman is 61 years young and full of life. She has her grandkids close to her and lives every minute for them. Seven live on the property with their parents, one with her. Two live just in town. Eleven more live in North Carolina and she counts every minute until she can see them again. Pictures of every one of them line her walls. She is proud of each and every one of them. She teaches some of them home school classes. She watches others play in the yard. She has them overnight in the spare bedrooms. She has enough car seats to carry a small daycare to town with her. She has two preteens that she takes in after school. She teaches Puggles in Awana on Wednesday nights. She keeps two Gulfstreams jets clean whenever they come into town. She has cakes to decorate with the May graduation and June wedding season just around the corner. She has grandchildren to catch as an assistant midwife. She keeps her family finances in line. She loves her husband.

She has her physical problems but who doesn’t. She has had a hole in her retna that doesn’t allow her to see out of one eye. She has a bad back with arthritis from an accident in which she was run over by a truck in a parking lot. She often comments about minor aches and pains and not getting enough sleep. None of these are anything you would go to doctor for individually.

None of these were problems until Saturday, May 9. After watching her go downhill all morning, her husband watches her pass out and calls her daughter for a second opinion on what to do. An ambulance should be called, it is decided, but the woman revives and says it is not necessary. Her arguments are good except she is having trouble articulating them. A stroke is suspected so the ambulance is called. She argues incomprehensibly with a rag on her forehead until the paramedics put her in the ambulance and take her to Good Shepherd Hospital.

On the way to the hospital she struggles to breath so they must get the airway going. Every time the woman wakes up she must be sedated. She is trying to remove the IV’s and the airways.

CAT scans are run. Blood test are taken. The doctors find her heart in good shape but her liver is not. The lungs are collapsing. Exploratory surgery must be performed to find the source of the problem. The Gallbladder is removed. Dye is run through the ducts in the liver and pancreas and it is declared that the next 48 hours are critical in order to know if she will pull through.

Children are called and told to be at the hospital as soon as possible in the morning before surgery. A son-in-law drives to Dallas to pick up a daughter flying in on the 5am flight from Raleigh-Durham. Thank God from small things like frequent flier miles. If a red eye were available she would have been on it. She arrives after surgery and is the last to say good-bye.

The already low blood pressure drops. Core temperature drops. Prayer is being sent to heaven from people around the world thanks to Facebook, Blogs, emails, prayer chains and cell phones. All this technology allows friends and family to follow of the life and death struggle going on in an ICU in Longview.

Finally at 3:23 on Sunday May 10, Mother’s day, it all stops. Just 26 hours after the ambulance call, she is recalled by her maker. She always wanted to go fast. The woman who wanted to carry everyone else’s burden did not want to be a burden herself.

As the family gathers in a waiting room on the 6th floor of the hospital, an impromptu wake begins. The tears start flowing. The questions start flying. What went wrong? What could we have done different? What next? Who is going to teach us? What about Papa? Some of the questions are moot points since there is nothing to be done now. Some of them need answered because it means how we will continue to live our lives.

The scenario is almost surreal. She is with us one day and gone the next. At what point is a problem too big to be ignored and should be dealt with? Is the pain a pay me now or pay me later situation? What about the eternal soul? Is religion a topic that we can sit around and argue about or discuss in lofty ideals? At what point do we quit playing games and make it real? This is not a movie, hour-long TV drama, Nintendo game or a novel any more. This is not the person you talk about in prayer meeting half way across the country. This is Grammy and this is real.

Velma Ruedean. You will be missed. You are well loved. You leave a big gap. People around the world have been affected by your life, your love, your work, your ministry and your cause: Five children; four daughters and one adopted son; their spouses, many foster children, four siblings; one brother, two step brothers and one step sister; twenty-one live grandchildren, one more is on the way that will be named after you, one husband, one mother, one stepfather, many children she has sat for in nurseries and has watched on school playgrounds, taught in classrooms, has managed in restaurants. Others you have kept from infancy, and the many, many others who thought of you has just “Mom”, or simply as “Grammy Rue”.

She is heaven today, enjoying the grandchild who died fifteen days into life. She is enjoying many children and grandchildren whom she never got to meet because of miscarriages.

Godspeed to you, Grammy Rue. We are looking for the day when we can meet again in heaven. As it says in Titus 2:13-14:

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
Tim R, May 11, 2009