Opa

Dan’s Opa (grandfather) died on Thursday morning. This is one of those times when our choice to live here in Nova Scotia is hard. At a time when we long to be with our family but when the life choices we have made don’t allow us to.
Our neighbor baled our hay for us and I had wanted to get it stacked on Wednesday evening, but somehow time got away on us and we didn’t get to it. So Dan got up on Thursday morning and decided to go out and get the hay in case it rained. At about 8:30 he and the girls were out there loading the bales on the truck while I milked the goat and did the morning chores. I joined them for a few minutes and they told me about how Dan remembered helping Opa get in his hay. Opa would drive the tractor while the others threw bales on the wagon. Dan was saying that it would be nice to have Opa with him out in the field. It was a brief, sweet sharing of childhood memories. I don’t have grandparents so I am always a little envious of all the memories Dan has and I have loved having two sets of grandparents the past years who have welcomed me as a granddaughter.

Just a couple of hours later, we got the message that we needed to call Oma and we knew that it must be about Opa. He had died that morning.

In the very moments when Dan was remembering and we were out in the field talking about Opa, he was taking his last breaths. I don’t believe that was coincidence. God has a way of making connections in unexpected ways.