Violas in the Summer

For my cousin, Eric Etter, and I, we unfortunately were not close to her when she passed away—he was on the other side of the country and I was in a different hemisphere. You see, we were serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I remember the last time I saw her, she was just about to leave my home after having visited me—along with the entire family—the Sunday before I was to leave on my mission. She sat silently crying in her wheel chair. I gave her a big, loving hug just before she was wheeled out. I asked my mom why she was crying and she told me that grandma thought it was possibly the last time she would see me.

She was right.

I didn’t get to have the goodbye I would have chosen before my Grandma passed, but it was the goodbye she needed from me and it was the goodbye God had planned for us.

I can’t speak for my cousin—but I would guess that he feels similar to me—but, not being with my Grandma Martinsen when she passed was hard, and I haven’t ever quite felt as though I’ve fully accepted that.

The following videos tell two different stories of two boys, and how they have coped with the goodbye God gave them and their grandmother. The first is a video of Eric singing a song he wrote for her on the one year anniversary of her passing. The second is a narration of my experience with telling her goodbye, and the things I have learned about my grandmother postmortem.

Eric is very talented in music and I think his goodbye to our grandma reflects that. He and I both were able to talk to her over the phone before she died. He sang to her, through the receiver, some of her favorite hymns. Eric was not only serving the people of Baltimore at the time Viola died, but he was also being a missionary to his own family. He shared his talents with Grandma until the very end.