Tribute from the grandchildren of Eleanor Irving

April 28, 1976: Birdie Irving, Eleanor’s mother in law, came up out of the basement and found Eleanor sitting on the stairs crying. “Eleanor, what’s wrong?”, she asked. Through her tears, she replied “I’m a grandma.”

My name is Chris Pauls, I was the one born April 28, 1976. And I was the first of six reasons that Eleanor got called grandma”. And, at the time of her death, she had 10 (and counting) great grandchildren.

What are the traits that we, her grandchildren saw in her? Well, she liked to give gifts, she liked jewelery, she liked her Naturalizer shoes and she liked going to Wendy’s, or if it was a special occasion, to Humpty’s. Yes, she was a creature of habit and therefore she was able to introduce us to her friends at Wendy’s and Reeser’s jewelery and even found enough favor with the Grey Goose bus driver to have him “swing by” her apartment to drop her off on the way home from Winkler.

I remember getting a call, probably in my late teens, that grandma had a floor model stereo that was supposed to be mine upon her death. “I’d like to get rid of it and I was wondering if you’d like it or should sell it and give you the money instead?”, she asked. I opted for the cash, but within a few months, I returned to her apartment to find another floor model stereo in the same place as the first had been. Grandma was very generous – she loved to pay for every meal that we went out on, she would even declare it before the meal began so that she didn’t get gyped out of the ‘privilege’.

As a child, Bill would often grab one of the ceramic cocker spaniels that sat on Grandma and Grandpa's fireplace. He'd pull them down to play with them. Grandma was always concerned that he'd break one, but she must've learned to trust him because, as an adult, she gave them to him to have in his own home.

Mike and Janette, while looking through some of grandma’s journals were amazed at how grandma had spent time praying for us. She never made a show of her relationship with God, but we knew about her regular morning devotional time and her efforts to help others at church.

One day, Mike brought grandma back from the farm in his ’68 Ford pickup. Not long before, he’d been doing some torch work under the truck and accidently blew a hole through the floorpan and floor mat. As they travelled, Mike drove through a puddle and grandma had water spray up her pantleg. He never heard the end of that.

When Jamie and Trevor went to visit, grandma would often get Trev to clean the high spots on her furniture and she was always excited to see her great grandkids. We saw the pictures of Michael and Julianna that she kept close at hand. When little ones were around, you could often tell she wanted to hold them, even after she was too frail to do so.

We didn’t always take the time to visit grandma as we should, but no matter how long it’d been since we’d seen her, she never put on a guilt trip about that, she was too focused on the business at hand: being happy that we were there and making the most of our time together.

Beth says that one of the fondest memories she has of Grandma was driving her from Brandon to mom and dad’s. She’d brought along a hymnal and put it into her glove box. They sang together for the whole ride home.

Grandma was an avid reader and often during Christmas at mom and dad’s, you’d find her sitting in the red armchair, reading whatever she could find – reader’s digest, a cook book, a novel - anything that was lying around. Her love of reading was a blessing to Fairview residents as in years’ previous when she still had her car, she’d read novels to them. She wasn’t always sure that some were interested: they’d have their eyes closed and their heads down. She kept going despite this, and then one of the people who looked like they'd been snoozing would ask what was to come next, or in some way, let her know that she’d been heard.

During grandma's last weeks in the Baldur Hospital, Beth and Derick went to visit her. Grandma, always an avid talker, had been reduced to almost complete silence at this point. Beth took a moment to assure her of how loved she was, grandma got anxious and was trying to speak, but couldn’t. Then Beth said “and we know that you love us too.” With that, Grandma stopped struggling to speak. Last Sunday, God invited grandma to enter His presence and leave her weak and failing body behind. Yes, I believe that Grandma went to heaven, but what kind of suprise is that? Don't they say that sort of thing at every funeral? We like the sound of it so that's what we say, right? How is this time any different? We read in the Bible that even our best doesn't meet the requirement to get to heaven. God requires nothing less than complete perfection, a standard that none of us meet. Now Grandma did a lot of good things, she read at Fairview, went to church, prayed daily, was part of the church lady's group and enlarged song sheets so that the elderly could read them. These were good things, pleasing to God, but these good things did not make grandma a perfect person. The Bible tells us that the only way to God is to trust Jesus to take away our sins and make us perfect. Grandma was quite private about the nitty gritty of her relationship with God but she told us enough that we are confident she was trusting Jesus' promise to take her sins away.

Today we don’t mourn grandma's loss of life, but rather, we mourn our loss of her. I remember as a child I always thought of how fun it'd be to watch my own funeral. To watch everyone crying and saying nice things about me and stuff. Some might suggest that grandma's spirit is hovering in the rafters, watching us. But I really doubt it, because where she is, she's got better things to do.