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| Magdalena "Maggie" Yoder Schrock 1936-2023 was laid to rest today at the Oak Hill Mennonite Church cemetery near Cumberland, Virginia. |
I shared this meditation today at the graveside of my very special sister and lifelong best friend:
This is such an emotional moment for me, but as someone has said, to be able to really cry we need someone to cry with. All of you gathered here today are people I need to cry with, to mourn the loss and to celebrate the life of our dear sister Maggie.
It seems like only yesterday that we met here at this beautiful little Eden here at the Oak Hill Church to bury Maggie’s beloved Alvin. Now today we lay to rest our precious Maggie beside her husband of 67 years, in a space shaded by trees, a place so inviting to some of Maggie’s favorite things—birds and wildflowers, bees and butterflies, green grass and beautiful fall leaves. She loved nature and gardening, and loved people, loved her family and friends and neighbors far and wide, and above all she loved God.
I’ve been so blessed by growing up in the warm circle of her kind and sweet spirit, been blessed by having a next older sister who looked after me, cared for me, loved me, worked and played with me, took time to talk with me, sang with me, encouraged me, and over the years sent us so many wonderful letters and cards, all expressions of her heartfelt faith and hope and love.
For our wedding she gave us a beautiful oil painting of this nature scene she created as a special gift for Alma Jean and me nearly 60 years ago. We’ll miss her talents and her many gifts freely shared with family, friends and neighbors and with the students she taught and loved here at the Oak Hill School.
Since we're just 3 years apart in age Maggie and I shared many first things together, our first train trip to Virginia when our family moved to the Shenandoah Valley from Kansas, our first school bus ride to the Stuarts Draft Elementary school with 400 some students, so scary compared to the one room school we attended together in Kansas. Childhood and youth were full of first things.
Now we are experiencing last things, last children leaving home, last full time work, last years of robust health and energy. Maggie has been just ahead of me in losing her good hearing, her 20-20 eyesight and her good heart health, and now we are here for a last farewell, Maggie having drawn her last breath. The days and years between first things and last things have gone by “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,” as Job once lamented.
Over the past months as we and all of her beloved children and grandchildren became ever more aware of Maggie’s failing health, including her failing heart that finally just gave out. So we were becoming prepared to see her go, but I for one still haven’t been ready to see her gone, my last remaining sibling, even though we know she’s with God and all is good. Maggie has gone ahead of us but she‘ll always be with us, will live on in us and through us in all the ways she has blessed, enriched and influenced our lives for good, and for God.
By faith we also claim, as Maggie did, Job’s words of assurance, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after we awake, though our body has been destroyed, yet in our flesh we will see God.”
So may we share with Maggie the unwavering faith she demonstrated and passed on, that
The Lord is our Shepherd, we shall not want,
He makes us lie down in green pastures,
He leads us beside still waters,
He restores our souls,
He leads us in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake,
Yea though we walk in the valley of the shadow of death
we will fear no evil, for you are with us
Your rod and staff protect and comfort us
You prepare a table for us in the presence of our enemies
You anoint our heads with healing oil
our cups are full to overflowing
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us
all the days of our lives
And we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever.
Amen.
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