My Grandma

These past few months have sent me down the road of reflection.  I have thought hard about what I would write when my Grandma finally grasped Jesus hand and walked into Eternity with Him.  Well, she took that walk with Him last Thursday.  She took one last breath here on Earth and opened her eyes  to Heaven.

When pondering what I would write, I felt at a loss.  My dear friend said to me, "if God wants you to write He will give you the words."  I have prayed and it is only now that I feel God moving me to put words to my thoughts.

I have felt guilty that I couldn't come up with a lovely flowery tribute for my Grandma.  Although I have always felt loved by her, I never had a real close bond to her.  She always seems to hold us kids at a distance.  Where we could climb up in Grandpa's lap, Grandma's was off limits.  That is kind of how I felt.  But these last few weeks of her life, I have gotten a different perspective of who my Grandma was.

She was a women who loved deeply even though she didn't show it through affection.  God gifted her with the love of nursing and that is where her love shined through.  I remember when I first had Micah he was a little jaundiced.  I remember her calling me and telling me to strip the baby down to just a diaper (and if I was daring, take that off too) and lay him on the floor in a sunny spot.  I told her I would do just that and after a 4 hour nap in the warm sun, Micah didn't look so yellow anymore.  The next day at his doctor's appointment I was told that he looked remarkably better.  She was showing me her love with that phone call.

I also know that when you love deeply, you get wounded deeply and because of this, I think she guarded her heart.  Only these past few months do I think she finally allowed her heart show.  I will never forget the way her eyes lit up when she saw my kids walk into her room for a visit.  The way she would just watch them and smile as they talked or played.  Her mind had slowly started to fade, but what she forgot was not names and faces.  She forgot to guard her heart, she forgot that she didn't usually allow a smile on her face when kids got squirmy.  She forgot that she didn't usually tell us how much she loved us.  She forgot she usually didn't show much affection.  I saw more smiles on her face, I heard more "I love you's", I had more squeezes of my hand, hugs around the neck and kisses on my cheek than I have had in all my years combined.  These past few months have been a gift.

Even though my Grandma lacked in area's that I have at times wished she didn't lack in, there was one area that she had an abundance of.  Faith.

My Grandma had lived through some very difficult times.  Her life was not easy, from a young age she was expected to care for her family while her mother was gone working and her father was in a hospital bed with tuberculosis during the Depression.  She experienced great loss when she lost the ability to have her own children, she had lived through times of deep turmoil.  But through it all she had held onto her faith.  I think at times she had clung desperately to it.  Even as she lay in bed last week, her last words spoken were her crying out to her Savior to come for her.

I have often wondered how people can go through life without a relationship with Jesus.  When life gets difficult, when the world gets scary, where do you go, who do you put your trust in?  What purpose is there in life without Jesus?  This life is but a blink of an eye and it's gone, is the money you earned/saved, the things you acquired,  the places you've gone worth anything without Jesus?  Even my children's lives are worth nothing without Jesus.  It is my greatest prayer that my children will always walk with the Lord.  I pray the Faith that was passed down from my Grandma, to my Mother, from my Mother to me, and now from me to my children, will be a Faith that weathers the storms, that stands up to the World and all that entices, and that carries them their whole life.  A Faith like my Grandma's.

Tomorrow I have to say goodbye to a Grandma I was just discovering.  For that my heart is sad, it feels a great loss.  But there will be a day that I will be with her again.  Just like Tyler said when I told him she died, "don't worry Mommy we will see her again in Heaven."  I can just imagine the next time I see her she will throw her arms around me in a big hug, give me a kiss, take me by the hand and show me all the places in Heaven she and Grandpa love (including the mudslide).  That day will be a joyful reunion, not because she showed her love with hugs and kisses, but by passing on a legacy of Faith.