Joyce Greyell, Tnt Article Obituary (1927

Final road trip from Montana to Tacoma lets husband say goodbye Dawn hadn't broken on Philip Greyell's 83rd birthday Tuesday when he got behind the wheel of his Chevy Suburban to drive his wife of 60 years on her last journey, all the way back to Pierce County. Joyce Greyell, 82, had died Saturday in her bed in the couple's Plains, Mont., home. It was as peaceful a leaving as anyone could hope for. Joyce had admired the haircut Philip had just given their son, 59-year-old Stephen. She said she was going to lie down and asked Philip to water their garden. "He said that when he went into the bedroom, she had her eyes open and a smile on her face, like she had seen the angels, or Jesus coming for her," their daughter Sharonjoy Glass said by phone Tuesday morning. Glass and her husband, Bob, were on the road, too, crossing from California into Oregon after taking their son to college. They were headed for Gig Harbor, where they own Haven of Rest Funeral Home & Cemetery. Philip and Stephen Greyell were somewhere between Coeur d'Alene and Seattle, bringing Joyce's body to Haven of Rest. Philip had insisted on that last trip together. "We offered to drive," Glass said. "We told him we can send someone to bring her home. But he said, ?I want to be the one to drive her.' This was his last gift to Mom. He wanted to bring her. My dad is such a hero." The Glasses arranged the details, the embalming, the certificates and transit permits. Mourning though they were, they saw bits of humor in this journey. Stephen, who was riding in the front seat with his dad, is a gregarious man, though crumpled with mental and physical disabilities. Joyce's body, in a special transfer cot, was in the back, where she liked to ride on trips. Philip was driving straight through in one long day, stopping only for gas, food and rest breaks. "We were chuckling about all that," Glass said. "It really is a scenario. My brother Sheldon said this is the stuff movies are made of." Her parents were born Montanans, and remained so at heart during the four decades they lived in Tacoma. "My mom was born in Havre, and they lived in Hot Springs when they were first married," Glass said. "My oldest brother was born in Hot Springs in a little tiny hospital. It was a hard birth, and he was left without oxygen in the birth canal. That's how he became mentally disabled." Instead of letting him die, as one nurse suggested, the Greyells took him to Seattle Children's Hospital. They settled in Tacoma's North End, where Philip worked two jobs, at Darigold and a grocery store. Joyce stayed home as their family grew to include five children. When Philip retired in 1993, the Greyells did what they had promised themselves they would: They returned to Montana. They bought a big home on the Clark Fork River by the railroad tracks in Plains. Stephen waved at the trains, and the engineers pulled the whistle for him. Their Christmas light display was the best in town. Philip grew so many tomatoes, he had plenty left to sell at the grocery store. The kids, Sheldon Greyell of Renton; Sharilyn Pollen of University Place; Starlene Martin of Tacoma; and Bob and Sharonjoy Glass of Key Peninsula, brought their families over for vacations. It was, as life in Montana can be, golden. Time and arthritis caught up with Joyce. Stephen's disabilities grew more difficult, and Philip cared for them both in patient, intimate ways. That, said Glass, is the spirit he maintained on that last long drive. There was time for Stephen to understand his mother's passing. Time for Philip to say goodbye as he took his wife through that glorious landscape back to her children. "You face it head on," Glass said of what she calls her father's last gift to her mother. "You get more intimately involved. You get treasured memories you can hang onto forever. As they go over the passes and through those scenic mountains driving together, this will be a special last goodbye for them." Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/08/25/1313802/a-final-journey-together-lets.html#ixzz0xj8vJct3