Family and friends are very important

This last week has been one of the most exciting, sad, fun, emotional, extraordinary, meaningful, devastating, historic, confusing, appreciative, and unforgettable weeks of my life. I had more fun and felt more grief than can be imagined within minutes of each other. But through it all, I felt both physically and emotionally supported by my family and friends.

As I started to write this column, I discussed with myself which should I emphasize -- family or friends. It is very unusual at such a moment to have the actual physical presence and support of 84 members of my family. But at the same time, I had the actual physical presence and support of our church friends, neighbor friends, and countywide Extension service friends. Then I realized that they were all family in a way.

The church family that served the 84 members of our family reunion such a delicious meal in the cool Fellowship Hall is a group that has come forth at least four times to give the family a quiet, cool place to congregate during our quadrennial reunions at The Wayside. Each time the meal has been delicious and each time the friends that had donated the food and done the serving were ones that have given us support and love for years. Hugs exchanged at that time were as meaningful as the hugs that incoming family members shared at the farm were. We had jokingly said each time that this would take the place of my funeral dinner when I died. We didn't expect it to become a form of a funeral dinner for my sister Ellen who was known by many of the servers. At that time we knew that Ellen could not come to the reunion because of weakness, but hadn't realized how serious her condition had become.

The night before, our close neighbors catered our meal in the reunion tent. It was also delicious and doubly meaningful since their parents and grandparents and our parents and grandparents were long-time friends and neighbors. In fact, the present president of the Ellis Domestic Science Club that my mother helped organize in September 1915 was filling in for her injured daughter as our caterer that night.

Lester and I slipped away from the church dinner early to be present in the 4-H building at the fairgrounds where Lester was honored as the Extension Alumni of 2014. Seeing those familiar faces -- a bit grayer and more wrinkled perhaps than when Lester was the Balanced Farming Agent here in the 1950s through 60s -- was a pleasure. The award that was created and presented by our neighbor Harva Miller was outstanding and very creative. This meeting was doubly meaningful as several of the family members had come to join the meeting and shared the moment with us. I kept remembering that my father, Chester Gray had worked hard to get a county fair established in early 1900s. It was where Fairground Estates are now but didn't survive the depression. Lester was an agent here when this Fairgrounds was begun and our son, Michael and daughter, Shirley had each shown livestock in the new fairgrounds.

Meanwhile, back on the farm; swimming and boating in Grayt Lake, volleyball, visiting in the shade or in the temporarily air conditioned smoke house looking at memorabilia and hearing more distressing news from my nieces, Ellen's daughters, who had left the reunion to be back with their mother was still going on. One of Ellen's commands (and she was good at organizing the rest of us) was that we should continue to have fun and play the games that were traditional.

One new and very original game was Graymazing Race based on the television show having teams go from spots on the farm where my generation of family had spent time, worked or enjoyed to another spot in a race for time. Things included posing on top of the concrete gate posts, swinging from ropes in trees, discovering the old cistern, etc. Saturday night I led games in the remodeled living room of the family home and felt Ellen's presence with me. Our daughter, Susan, came in to announce that Ellen was in the ICU and it wasn't very hopeful, but she was adamant that we continue our fun and games. So I did. Later I had the privilege of watching a new generation of youngsters being taught the old family favorite game "Go Sheepie Beat It" in the light of the Super Moon, while many of the group were pickin' and singin' in the tent.

When I was awakened very early on Sunday morning to be told that Ellen was now gone, I was shocked as if I thought this remarkable woman, my sister buddy, would overcome even death.

At her services in Lebanon on Thursday I was able to share with yet another family/friend group as her writer friends could join with her children and many nieces and nephews and with me, the last of the Gray kids, missing her special sister very much.