In the days that followed my mother's death, the kindness our family was shown by everyone who expressed condolences at her passing served to make a difficult time a little easier. Beyond our Ropp, Hutchinson and marriage extended families were cherished old friends, many of whom are also gathered with us here today. If there is a silver lining to death's dark cloud it is that there is nothing like the passing of a loved one to demonstrate the blessing it is to be loved and cared about by family and friends. I would be remiss here today if I did not begin my remarks with a heartfelt and sincere expression of our gratitude. And so from all of us to all of you, “Thank you!”

My mother's coming home, as symbolized by our presence here today, was a long time coming. As best we can determine, the last time she could have been at Eastminster Presbyterian Church was in 1983, the year she and Irv sold their home in Alma and moved full time to their retirement home in Florida. My folks dreamed of doing this for years, but they didn't foresee that the circumstances of their life would end up making this dream something more like a nightmare. In 1980, my mother discovered she had breast cancer and went through the trauma of a mastectomy and the ensuing misery of chemotherapy. In 1983, during the time my folks were selling their home and making the move south, she suffered a heart attack and spent a considerable period of time in the hospital. Once the move was made, it was Irv's turn next, as he was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1984, and died a painful and horrible death when it recurred in 1985. In a very real way, this observance is also for him, as Verda wanted no part of doing a service for him at the church, saying at the time, “I would never get through it.” This was likely true enough, as she barely got through the graveside service we did at the cemetery. And so today, we are not only finishing the process of bringing my mother's remains home to their final resting place, we are finishing the process of bringing my father's memory, and the memory of their life together, home as well. When we placed my mother's ashes in the ground yesterday next to those of my dad, it symbolized a final victory for both of them that had been 30 years in the making.

When my dad died in 1985, it left my mother emotionally devastated. Because of the illnesses they suffered, the plans they had made for their retirement never materialized, and rather than enjoy their golden years together as they had dreamed of doing, this became a time of stress and hardship and then, ultimately, despair. From this time onward, my mother, alone in a grief that found no comfort, and in which she would not be consoled, spiraled downward into a deep and profound depression. Each of us tried to talk her into moving to where we lived, but she doggedly refused, and when she did visit, as if to prove her point, she would proceed to make everyone's life as miserable as her own. And she was good at this. Left to her own devices, she figured out how to work three different doctors for tranquilizer prescriptions, and she ended up taking these and various other medications until she reached a crisis point. This crisis resulted in several days of dextox, and when Verda returned to life on planet earth, it was with the realization that drastic changes needed to be made in her life.

She decided she would give life a new try in Dunedin, where Robin lived, and moved into an apartment there. Robin found her a doctor who specialized in medication issues concerning elderly people, and when Verda walked in with a shoebox full of the 18 different prescriptions she was taking, she walked out with the three that she actually needed. Her transformation at this point became nothing short of miraculous. Virtually overnight, the mother we thought we had lost forever reemerged and resumed her rightful role as the matriarch of our little clan, and we experienced the unexpected joy of getting here back right minded and determined to move forward, finally, into a new life without Irv. And the way she did this exceeded all of our expectations, and I suspect even her own.

Verda's life took yet another turn for the better when she was able to move into Casa Miguel, a senior living apartment community near where her first apartment was. This was a community where she would flourish for the next 12 years or so and make many wonderful friends. When we threw her a surprise party for her 90th birthday, we realized how truly far she had left the old reclusive and self destructive Verda behind when she spent an entire Saturday afternoon being feted and fussed over by her friends. It was touching for us and I can only imagine how much more so for her.

Like George Harrison once wrote in a song, “All Things Must Pass,” and so did Verda's time at Casa Miguel. By 2012 she was struggling with the onset of dementia, and through Robin's noble and daily efforts, was able to stay on for more than a year after she wasn't really able to be on her own anymore. Finally the time had come for the greater level of care an assisted living facility would offer, and so on her 95th birthday, we moved Verda into her last place of residence at Brookdale Countryside in Clearwater. After several months, her dementia had advanced to the point where she needed the added supervision and assistance of memory care, and she moved into the Clare Bridge wing at Brookdale where such care was provided.

Dementia is by definition a very strange condition. Often times all the variations on this theme of memory loss are lumped together and called Alzheimer's Disease, but Alzheimers is actually only one of several different varieties. Dementia affects each one who suffers from it differently. In my mom's case, dementia meant a decline and eventual loss of short term memory. The inability to remember even the most simple and ordinary things from minute to minute and second to second presents some interesting communication challenges, but the resilience and tenacity of the human spirit also provides the necessary coping mechanisms. We learned to roll with it and even found out that when one pays attention, and learns to listen and respond in the right way, there is a lot to be learned from a person who has a perspective so drastically different than the rest of us.

In Verda's case, dementia seemed to compress all of her life's memories into the present time. The people she loved and cared about, and the events of her entire lifetime, existed for her as if it all existed together in the present moment. Her memories of things long past were as vivid and real as if they had just occurred, and memory loss for her also had this strange flip side of more distant memories recovered and intensified. She tended to remember, and it was as if she still lived in, those times when she was the happiest. When we, her three children, were present in any and/or all combinations, we were most often back in the 1960's and 70's. We came to realize that this time of her life, when the life of our family was centered in this church and in this community, was the happiest time of all. And that's why it was so important to us to bring her home, in this time and place, today. While in our reality, she had been gone from here for well over 30 years, in her reality she never left, and the yellowed 1974 Eastminster Church Directory she had in her room was as current to her as the day it was printed. During her last year, she couldn't remember what had happened the moment before, but she remembered those she loved and cared about and spoke of you fondly and often. And she would want you to know that today.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of Verda's dementia, and the most skewed reality it caused, was her conviction that those she loved the most in her life – usually her mother, father, sister Helen and brother-in-law Bill – were not only alive and well, but were kind enough to pay her regular visits. This started during the end of her time at Casa Miguel, when she began telling us of a conversation she had just had with one of her classmates from high school at the Shepherd Bar. Of course, this classmate had been dead many years, and if my mother was ever in the Shepherd Bar, it was likely before World War II, but this was as real and vivid to her as if it had just occurred.

Now this may all seem strange and kind of funny, but there was also a more serious side to it. During the year I was able to visit with my mother on almost a daily basis, I noticed that there was a consistency and a pattern to these visits she received from our long dead family members. The message always conveyed by whomever was bringing it was that all is well, everyone is happy, and we're all loved and appreciated. The effect this had on Verda was that of creating an unshakable contentment and sense of well being. And the weaker she became physically, and the more she failed mentally, the stronger this conviction became. In this remarkable last year of her life, my mother rose triumphantly above the unimaginable adversity created by a failing mind and body and became, in essence and in reality, the person she truly always wanted to be. She was invariably kind, warm, generous, loving and happy – even in the midst of her greatest suffering – and she was possessed of a gentle life's wisdom that transcended all of her deficiencies and weaknesses. She loved life right up until the moment came when she knew it was time to let go of it, and when that moment came she was ready to go and said so.

The lesson she learned in the 30 years from Irv's death until her own was that this is how God's plan works, and when we work God's plan, the end result is as it should be. Her life ended like the fading notes of a favorite song, and she went peacefully and quietly to whatever it is that lies beyond the final suffering of life on earth. I learned much from her in my life, but never so much as when she lay so greatly diminished in mind and body, yet dying happy, contented and hopeful in her spirit. The lesson learned is that time, age and earthly decay may rob the body of its vitality, and the mind of its reason, but, in the end, the soul survives and flourishes for it. And the reward is certainly worthy of the time and effort necessary to attain it.

Much has been written about the experiences of those who have died, gotten a glimpse of eternity, and then returned to tell about it. Verda's anticipation at the end of her life clearly indicated a sense that something better was yet to come, and the glimpse she was given was by those she had loved most in her life, who had returned to her from somewhere beyond their own human existence.

In our Judeo-Christian tradition, we have been warned since Old Testament times about the danger of seeking the counsel of the dead, and this is surely good advice, as horror stories abound describing how this can go awry. It does seem, however, that it just may be possible that, as death approaches and the soul begins to make the transition from this life to the next, those who have gone before us may take a direct role in guiding the weary soul home to be with God. Indeed, the oldest traditions of the Church tell us that the angels and saints in heaven are there to intercede for us and help us do precisely this. Perhaps this is why Verda so matter of factly reported seeing an angel outside her window on the day before she died. Perhaps there were more to those visits from our dead relatives than the mere delusions or hallucinations of a failing brain. If we believe, as our faith teaches, that the Lord has loved us enough to die for us, and, in doing so, has gone before us to a prepare a place for us in heaven, then couldn't this same Lord love us enough to send us those we loved most in this life to show us to our place in the next? Perhaps the key to this is that those who are diminished in mind have this benefit as a form of compensation. My mother's more spiritually minded attendants at Brookdale were quick to tell us that Verda's circumstances were in no way unique to her, and they believe this is precisely what happens.

When we were kids, my folks had a song they would sing together as a duet. They were actually quite good, as my mom sang the melody and may dad harmonized. Truly, one of their lesser known talents, but something they enjoyed very much doing together. The song they sang was “Whispering Hope,” which is a hymn written by a man named Septimus Winner back in 1868. Gordon McRae and Jo Stafford recorded a popular version of the song in 1949, and this was the version my folks recreated and even recorded. I believe somewhere I still may have a cassette tape with a few seconds of their singing on it.

Especially in the last year of her life, it seemed to me that my mother may well have been receiving a sort of “whispered hope” from across the great divide – the whispered but distinct message that all is well, everyone is happy, and we're all loved and appreciated. There are those who would rather claim that this was the result of a chemical imbalance or a misplaced electrical impulse in a compromised and failing brain, but there isn't much hope in that, whispered or otherwise. Like those who observe this sort of thing all of the time, I tend to think that there is something much more significant going on in this than science can describe.

In the whispered hope my mother received in her last days, the person most conspicuously absent was my dad. I found this curious until I had a conversation with her shortly before she died that somewhat explained it. In one of her more lucid moments, she said, “Let me ask you a question and I want you to tell me the truth. Your dad died, didn't he?” I replied, “Yeah, Momma, he did.” She asked, “How long ago was that?” I said, “A long time ago now; over 30 years ago.” She said, “That is a long time. You know, I don't remember a thing about that, and I guess that's probably a good thing. It must have been pretty bad.” I assured her that it was.” She said quietly, “You know, you may not believe this, but I think Irv is going to be back soon now.” I reassured her that I actually did believe that.

My final thought of my parents is that they are back together again after all of this time, and I picture them once again singing “Whispering Hope” together. The original version of the hymn that Septimus Winner wrote had three verses, but in all of the popular versions of the song, only the first two are sung. When my folks sang their version of it, I doubt that they were even aware that there is a third and final verse. Today I believe they know it and lovingly sing it together, and if we listen closely and believe, perhaps we can hear it in a whisper of hope that drifts across the vast and quiet of the eternal landscape. It goes like this: