He Alone is Our Peace

My five year old granddaughter, Emma Grace, and I visited the cemetery today and placed new flowers on her Papaw's grave.  She picked up several pink roses from the ground, which had been scattered by the wind and placed them in the vase on his headstone.  She said, "Papaw will love these up in Heaven."  In the process of gathering the flowers, she wandered among the gravestones looking especially for monuments with angels.  She has learned that most of the time angels mark the graves of children.  She found two angel markers today and asked me to read the names on the marble.  A name on one stone was Katie Grace.  She told me she has a friend named Gracie Kate. There was a photo of the child incorporated on the stone.  It's difficult to know how children percieve death, especially the death of a child.

A recent severe tornado-like thunder storm has felled several old trees all over the cemetery grounds and there are huge brush piles and fresh tree stumps scattered about.  A large tree had obviously fell near Bill's grave and had knocked over a near-by marble stone.  Emma Grace was upset because the stone was lying on the ground, and she wanted to know who would fix it.  She said she was glad the tree had not fallen on her Papaw's grave.

Emma had me read her Papaw's name and the inscription on the headstone, "He alone is our peace", a Bible verse from Ephesians 2:14.  She ask me, "What does that mean?".  I told her it meant that Papaw was happy in Heaven...resting with Jesus.  After we completed arranging the flowers in the marble vase, we turned to leave the gravesite and Emma Grace said, "Bye, bye Papaw, I love you".