Thoughts on Grandma

Psalm 116:15-16

Precious in the sight of the Lord

is the death of his faithful servants.

Truly I am your servant, Lord;

I serve you just as my mother did;

you have freed me from my chains.

I guess when someone lives to be 97 they naturally become larger than life. Their fingerprints manage to work their way all over every house and article owned by a family. Somehow though, I think Grandma Stafford may have started larger than life. Somehow, I believe had her life been only this last decade, not all 97 years – she would have changed us each forever. I have thought much and written much about my Grandmother over the years. The self-educated woman - “from the cotton patch – to the pentagon”- the source of our entire family's sustenance (whether she was feeding us, financing us, advising us or disciplining us).

But this morning... on the morning where she FINALLY left us to be with Jesus... I want to record what she has given to me in the past decade. The years after grandpa. The years since we knew something was wrong because she ate all 5 quarts of Jarod's fudge in one night.... because - let's face it – if every piece seems like your first – “Why not?” Alzheimer is a terrible disease. And though she ate plenty of peanut M&M's and fudge for her reward of a life well lived... it is not the slow and horrifying way anyone would choose to go.

So why was she here this last decade? Moving from house to house. Walking my Aunt through cancer, Paul back to Kansas, my parents through transitions, me through the first years of motherhood, living in each of our homes, surviving surgery after surgery, and then finally living the day-in-day-out at a nursing home – locked in her own little world? Why did she repeat story after story to caretaker after caretaker until we thought we couldn't listen to the story one more time? And then, just like the seasons of the year pass, with a favorite fruit that you have eaten to much of... it is gone. But unlike the season of the year... each story was never to return... and somehow – beyond all fathoming – I couldn't remember it word for word like I swore I could. And I would wish for each story back so I could REALLY LISTEN.

But there was only silence. Listening to the last years of silence from her. The woman who after school would drill me on what I had learned and lecture me on what I hadn't. She had no more words for me. But she didn't leave me. Sometimes when I would be feeding her one side and Lucy on the other - she would reach for a spoon and try to feed me. Until the end – she would sometimes try to feed me. These last years she has physically lived the reality that I don't really want to face, but yet through her I have come to love and accept.

In life, no matter how we want to impact the lives of others, in the end – all we can really do is BE THERE for one another. Often in silence. Watching one another muddle through our own battles and lessons. James 4 says, “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” In the end, after the example has been set and the advice has been dispensed and the goal has been established, we just get carried along by the quick vapor of life together saying... “as the Lord wills”. Or in my language, “I didn't see that one coming.” So – grandma and I were just there for one another. In the end, neither of us really having anything to offer the other – at all. Both of us learning that THAT was truly ok. It was the final lesson she had to teach me... and I hope I really listened.

Grandma... I am sorry it took me so long to listen in the silence. I'm sorry it became the joke among us all that you would “Never die.” But the truth is … you will NEVER die. For you will always BE with Him in glory. Thank you for learning to BE, here with me, on earth. I will TRULY, TRULY miss you.

Until we meet again...

P.S.  Grandma... I am not going to spend much time this week on funeral plans... I am going to work on getting all the money to the kids in Honduras for their schooling.  I know you are good with that.  Thanks for changing ALL our lives.