What an incredible experience

Thanks Nana.

Thanks for being persistent about your birth place being your final (somewhat) resting place.

Nana is now a family ancestor. That’s how my cousin described her at the service in Louisiana this afternoon.

I can understand why she wanted this. Her father, her mother, cousins, nieces, sisters, brothers are all buried there…right there in front of the church.

I watched them lower her casket into the ground and cover it. I had to witness. And it really brought about a sense of closure and I was at peace. I cried but I also celebrated her life. I accepted her new role as one of those in the great cloud of witnesses and a celebrated ancestor.

Nana did not want to be buried in Texas dirt. So we brought home some of the Louisiana dirt.

We saw the cotton fields where Nana used to pick cotton as a little girl. We saw the general store she and siblings used to go too.

The family has 40 acres (no mule…LOL) which holds the family house. What a treasure! All the original furniture from great-great grandmothers and fathers still in the house. First ever made radio, old clocks, the first ever record player; all still there.

There’s a memory table of all the family members who have gone on…and Nana was added to the table.

Going to Louisiana was the best thing I could have ever done and I have Nana to thank.

We’re going to spend Memorial Day there because they have a huge service for all those buried in the church cemetery. It’s also a chance to do some fund raising for the upkeep. We have a new reason to go since Nana is there.

I exchanged lots of phone numbers with lots of cousins. We hugged. We cried. We laughed.

I experienced so much in my short visit today. I picked greens, my cousin gave me eggs out the hen house, the tour of the family house, I held a pitchfork used by slaves made out of pipe, I stood on land handed down from generation to generation. I’m so at peace tonight. I know I will sleep well. Nana is just fine; for lots of reasons tonight.