The title of the message at my Grandma's funeral was "Pauline's House". How appropriate that title was! The sermon, based on Psalm 23 and the first part of John 14, was about Grandmas's Heavenly home - her Father's House. However, those of us who knew her well, those blessed to have been part of her family, could find another meaning to that sermon title.

"Mom, I'm going up to Grandma's house!" (I lived next door, or rather, in front of my Grandparents' house.)

I didn't say that I was going to Grandma and Grandpa's house. No. I was going to Grandma's house. Of course Grandpa would be there too, sitting on the porch if the weather was warm or in his chair if the air outside was cold. But it was GRANDMA'S house.

Before her health started to fail, she took great pride in her house and the things in it and outside of it. She would scrub the kitchen floor on her hands and knees, she made sure the plants in her front window were thriving, she would iron everything, from Grandpa's Sunday shirts and pants to the sheets that went on the mattresses. Outside, the leaves would be raked in the fall. (Her back yard was a mini forest!) In the spring, daffodil, tulip and gladiolus bulbs would be planted. A garden of bell peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers, or "cukes" as she called them, would be planted as well. During the summer she insisted on mowing the lawn around her house - my Dad's riding mower just wasn't good enough for her house. And I think she had the greenest thumb in the state of Pennsylvania. In the summer, her porch would nearly be overflowing with pink petunias.

The house now belongs to the WLD RANCH, just the way it should be. But it will always be Grandma's house to me.