I woke up Saturday morning, March 5, 2005 laughing so hard, tears were streaming down my cheeks. I had had a dream about my sister. She had sat down on our picnic table, and had just had her hair done. The top of her head was like Tina Turner’s and the bottom was full of ‘dread locks’ with wooden teddy bears and small cubes throughout them. I laughed and said, “Joann, what did you do to your hair?” She said, ‘Do you like it?’ I said, “Can you calm it down?” We laughed and then I told her, “I wish I could see you play the piano at your church this Sunday.” We started laughing together, and I woke up laughing so hard! I tried to tell my husband, Sonny, but I couldn’t even talk! When I finally stopped laughing, I told him, “I have got to call Joann today to tell her about this dream.” 
      We were going to see our son Andy in Beaufort that day, so, at about 9:00 that morning (7:00 Montana time) I called Joann. We talked and laughed so hard together. We talked about the kids and her Bible study. I asked her what she was going to do that day, and she said, “Sandy, I don’t usually get a day that I can stay home. I’m always so busy. I’m going to enjoy this day baking and cleaning. We’re having dinner at the church tomorrow, and I am cooking for that.” We talked longer than we usually did. When I hung up, we each said, “I love you.” Little did I know that would be the last time I spoke with my sister this side of Heaven. 
      Sunday morning, we were headed back to Easley. I had just climbed into the back seat and my son Adam got in the front, when the phone rang. It was my brother Mark. Adam answered and gave the phone to Sonny. I heard Sonny say, “Okay, I’m pulling over.” He stopped the car on the side of the highway. (We had another two hours of driving before we would be home.) I watched as my husband bowed his head, and a sigh came from his lips. I thought something had happened to my mom or dad. When he hung up the phone and turned to me, he took my hand and said, “It’s bad.” I just knew it was one of my parents, so I was preparing myself for the worst. 
      He began to give me the news that my dear sister had been on her way to church, that there had been an accident, and that she had been killed instantly. The words came to my ears, but it took awhile for my brain to accept them. When I did, I could not stop crying. After the shock, I was looking out the back window, and all I could do was thank God for that crazy dream He had given me the night before. He was so gracious for giving me that dream. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have called her that day. 


          
                        Sandy Fisher and her sister Joann in Montana


        Sunday and Monday, I could not stop crying. It just didn’t seem real. I wanted so bad to be with my family. I talked with my Mom on Monday afternoon. She told me that the peace of God was so real in her house, and she couldn’t get over it. She even had told Dad she felt guilty, because she wasn’t crying all the time. When I hung up the telephone, I was sitting on the front steps of our home, and I began to sob! I didn’t have the peace that my mother had! I knew Joann was in heaven, but I had felt so lost. Later that day, the Pastor of the church we were visiting came over to be with us. God’s hand was so in that! My heart opened up, and I began to share, and God, in His mercy, showed me I was hanging on to things I needed to let go of. I needed to forgive people from my past, and, when I did, the peace that overtook me was like a healing from the Living Water! 
      We began our journey to Montana the next day, Tuesday. We arrived at 1:15 in the afternoon. My two brothers and their wives, my one sister, and Janea (Joann’s daughter) met Sonny and me at the airport. I fell into my big brothers’ arms and cried. It still didn’t seem real. I was waiting for someone to wake me up from a terrible nightmare. On the other hand, it was so good to be with my family. 
      As we were driving to Townsend, Joann’s home, my brother Mark related all of the information telling us about the accident and things leading up to that tragic morning. 
      It was Sunday morning. Madison, her granddaughter, had spent the night with them. At the breakfast table, with Grandma and Grandpa listening, Madison had asked her Grandma what Heaven was like. Joann began to explain to where a three year old could understand. Their dear friend Mr. Whipkey had died about a year earlier, and Joann said how he was there with Jesus. Little did she know that, in just a few short hours, she would be there, too! 
      Mike went on to church, and Joann was getting all of her stuff together. Mike did not know that Joann had planned a surprise birthday dinner for him after church that morning. (His birthday was two weeks later. God was so good. He knew that the church would need to be together to help each other, and the food was already there!) Joann got Madison in her car seat, directly behind the driver’s seat (which turned out to be a lifesaving decision). They told us Joann was religious about putting on her seat belt! But that day God had other things in store for her. He distracted her just for a few seconds to where she “forgot.” Maybe she was tickling Madison or just touching her leg. Whatever the reason, it was all a part of God’s plan. About a mile away from their house, Joann went off the road to miss a deer, she overcompensated, the car went off the road and spun a number of times, went through a barbed wire fence and was facing back to her house. She was thrown from the car. 
      Within a few minutes, a car came up on the accident, and the driver pulled over to help. This man was ‘our angel.’ His name was Mike, and he was a Pastor of the nondenominational church in Townsend. Madison was very familiar with the name ‘Mike’. She had heard so many people call her Grandpa ‘Pastor Mike.’ This dear man went to the car and bent down and said, “Hi, my name is Mike. What’s yours?” ‘Madison Marie,’ she said. He asked her who was in the car with her. She told him her Grandma flew out the window, and she pointed to the back passenger side. Mike went to find Joann and saw that she had already gone to meet her Lord. He went back to the car and checked Madison for any injuries. She had only a small bruise on her shoulder. He took her out of the car seat, called his own church, and told them what had happened. He said for them to pray and that he was going to stay at Faith Baptist to help the church members that morning. 
      Seth, who is Joann’s 21-year-old son and also a policeman, was the first to the scene. God so graciously ‘closed his eyes’ so he didn’t even recognize his mother or the car, until another unit got there. 
      We began to see how God had His hand all over that day. A few months before her homegoing, she had told her husband, “If I die before you, don’t let people mourn for me at my funeral. I want a celebration of my life. I have lived it to the fullest!” 
      She had done a Beth Moore study called ‘Breaking Free’, which ended before Christmas. She had told her husband sometime after that, “Mike, I don’t want you to take this wrong, but God has removed every stronghold in my life, and I am so ready to go see Jesus, that you or our children couldn’t stand in the way.” What peace that has given Mike. 
      She was in another Bible study, ‘Believing God,’ and she had three more weeks to go on that one. The Thursday before she died, she told her Bible study ladies she was so excited to go to Heaven and be with Jesus, she knew God was going to do some great things in their church in the year 2005! 
      As we were approaching Joann and Mike’s house, we saw four R.V.s. in front. Mark told us that the church members knew we would all want to be together, so they brought over their trailers for all of the family members. 
      We pulled into her driveway, and there, in front of the house, was a ‘for-sale’ sign. (She and Mike had decided three weeks earlier to put the house up for sale and move closer into town. God was so gracious again, to let them decide that ‘together.’) As we walked inside her house, I just cried. I expected her to come from around the corner. I went to my Dad, and as he held me as I cried, he said, “I never thought one of our children would go first.” Then, I went to my Mom. We held each other and cried some more. What a sad time. 
      That afternoon, we went to the funeral home. As I walked up to the casket, I thought I would collapse. I was so grateful that Sonny was there beside me. I looked down at Joann. She didn’t even look the same. There was no resemblance. All that I recognized were her hands. I knew she wasn’t there. She was enjoying the presence of God Himself!
      Later that night, the rest of the family came in, and, the next day, Wednesday, we had to do it all over again. It was amazing, though. After we each went to see her, it was like God Himself took His hand and gently caressed our broken hearts. 
      On Wednesday afternoon, we were all in the kitchen, and Mike told us how Joann wanted her funeral not to be a time of mourning but a time of celebration. One of Mike’s friends was there and played the song "You Lift Me Up." As the song played, Seth began to cry. He laid his head on his Dad’s chest, and Mike just cradled him. A time of healing had begun. We were all so concerned about him. I can’t imagine what went through his mind when he was the one to find his precious mother on the side of the road. 
      That evening, we went to church. My heart sank as I looked at the piano, knowing that Joann had played so many songs there. I felt so sad for the organist, for she was just weeping at the organ. My sister Connie sat with her awhile. 
      My brother Mark preached, and what a message God used to give peace to our souls. After the message, Mike opened up the church for a time of testimony. How it blessed my heart to hear the people stand, one after another, telling how Joann had touched their lives! Healing began in my own heart that evening. Church started at 7:00 p.m. We left there to go to the funeral home at 9:40 p.m.! 

  
                  Joann and her family at a Christmas gathering.

       As family and friends went into the funeral home, we could hear talking, laughing, whispering, all enjoying special memories about how much Joann had touched their lives. It was not a time of sadness. The grace of God was so evident upon that place! After we all went to the front for the last time, someone said, “Let’s stand together and sing.” It seems that every time our family got together, we always sang, so we all stood around her casket and began to sing. Joann loved music. We started with "Thank You, Lord," and then it was "I love you, Lord," then "I’m So Glad I’m a Part of the Family of God" and "Amazing Grace." I can’t remember them all, but, as we sang, it was the best we ever sounded! I told Mom it was because Joann was singing from Heaven. We didn’t get home till 11:30 that night. 
      I was in Seth’s bedroom earlier that day, thinking about what Mike had told us about how Seth would climb in bed with Joann and him and he would bring his guitar and sing to them for hours, or sometimes they would just talk. I began to wonder when he would pick up his guitar and sing again. 
      That Wednesday night, after we got home from the funeral home, I was in his room, talking to my sister, when he came in and said, “Aunt Sandy, would you pass me my guitar?” I told him I would love to hear him sing, and he said okay. We went out to the living area downstairs. There were about five to six people when he started singing Here I am to Worship. 
      By the time he was finished, everyone upstairs was downstairs. His dad asked Janea to sing with Seth the song they always sang, which so happened to be the same one. We all sat around and listened to Joann’s two children sing: “Here I am to worship, here I am to bow down, here I am to say that You’re my God. You’re altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me.” They sang the whole song, verses and all! Our hearts were being knit together. What a priceless moment. 
      The day of the funeral, March 10, had arrived, and we all were excited to see what God was going to do. I had told my brother Mark, “I knew we were going to see salvation that day!” Little did I know! 
      There was such peace in the house, laughter even from her husband, Mike. Everyone seemed to be anxious to see what God was going to do. They knew they didn’t have room in their church to hold everyone, so they had the funeral at the high school. How precious it was. They closed the high school at 1:30, and the high school kids set up chairs in the auditorium. It was a good thing too, because almost 800 people came! It started at 4:30. The family got there at 3:15, and we had trouble trying to find a parking place. 
      As we walked in, we couldn’t believe all of the flowers! It looked like a garden. Joann loved her flowers. There were 77 different kinds. Even my dear friends in South Carolina sent some! The florist said that never, in all of her days, had they had so many flowers to prepare for one funeral. She said they couldn’t make them fast enough, as more orders just kept coming. 
      God was so good to Mike, Janea, Nick, and Seth, and all of us. The grace He provided was unbelievable! I had heard once, long ago, that “God would give you dying grace only when you needed it.” How true that is! As the service began, it was like a glorious church service. Songs were sung, including special music by her dear friend, Kathy, and testimonies were given. Mike’s sister and all of us, her brothers and sisters, her mom and dad, her children, and Mike, himself, wrote letters of the memories we had of her. 
      Then, Mike Matavich gave the message of hope. In his message, he gave the plan of salvation. He asked that heads be bowed, and he gave the sinner’s prayer. He said that, if anyone had asked Jesus in their heart, would they please take a booklet that was being passed out at each door. He said that, if anyone wanted to stay and talk, there would be preachers and their wives at the back of the auditorium. 
      We left the school at 6:10 p.m. The sun was getting ready to set in the hills of beautiful Montana. As I walked past the white hearse, I thought, What an appropriate color for my sister. She was already in her final destination, Heaven, but her earthly body would be carried to its final resting place in the color of, what God says: “Our sins shall be as white as snow.” For Joann was truly pure that day as she stood before her Lord. 
      We drove just three miles from the school to the cemetery. I couldn’t believe all of the cars behind us. How many lives she touched! As we stood next to the hearse, waiting for them to take Joann to where she would be buried, again someone said, “Let’s sing.” Mike started, “Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul, thank you, Lord, for making me whole, Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation so rich and free.” We sang as people were coming up to the gravesite. I can’t imagine what that must have sounded like. Only God’s grace could have provided the peace for us to be able to sing at my sister’s funeral. After we stopped singing, the birds started! I have never heard birds sing after sundown. They were singing, and we were smiling. 
      Mike Mativitch gave just a small graveside devotional. We ended with another song, "Amazing Grace." When it was all over, I wanted to meet these people who had meant so much to my sister, so I began going from person to person, thanking them for coming. What a blessing it was for me as they would begin to share about my sister Joann, and what she had meant to them. 
      Someone had come to Mike to tell him the good news that 17 people had received Jesus as their personal Savior — including the Sheriff of Townsend and three Deputy Sheriffs. Joann truly got her day of celebration! I can hear her now as they called out the 17 names, “I know him, I know her”. 
      Friday morning, it was time for Sonny and me to get back on the plane for Easley, South Carolina. We were so thankful that God was taking care of the weather, for that whole week there was nothing but sunshine! In the beginning of March, normally, they would have had snow. We talked how we thought God had put that whole week in slow motion so we could enjoy being with our family each and every minute. 
      Saturday was an exhausting day for us. By 8:30 that evening, we were in the bed, and by 9:00, I was in a deep sleep. The phone rang at 10:10 p.m. to what I thought was a wrong number. It turned out to be my nephew Seth playing a prank phone call. It took me awhile, but I began to laugh. I couldn’t quit. Funny how this started out with laughter and ended the same way. 
      I will miss you, my dear sister.