There is a picture, somewhere in all our collections, of my mother with her arm around my grandmother’s shoulder, hugging her in the driveway at the farm. I can picture it so vividly in my mind. My mom had on her wig that was short and straight, and her glasses that tinted in the sunlight. My grandma was in a skirt, as she always was, and there was a car behind them I believe, although the details of whose it might be escapes me. It’s the smiles on their faces that I can picture the best. We lived five hours from both sets of grandparents and going home to her parents on the farm had to be my mother’s favorite place on earth to visit.
I fully expect this scene, this embrace, these joyous smiles were shared once again, between a mother and a daughter who have been separated for 14 1/2 years when they were once again reunited in heaven on New Year’s morning when my grandma passed away around 5 am.
My grandmother meant as much to me as my own mother, perhaps because, in my mother’s absence, it was my grandmother’s voice, her stories, her love, her laughter that could capture that same place in my heart that my mom did. Gram has always been the strong one. She was 88 but still living on her own with a caregiver dropping by occasionally to check on her. She still visited my grandfather every day in the nursing home (unless the snow got too deep – she walked across the yard from her apartment to his room at the nursing home). She still cooked meals and helped keep house for my only surviving uncle as well.
In her lifetime, she buried three children. One only two days old, just a couple months after she was married. The second, my mother at 46, and a few years after that, my uncle, from a sudden heart attack. She was a farmer’s wife, married for nearly 68 years. She took care of my grandfather, her children, her grandchildren, neighbor’s children and both her mother and her mother-in-law. She cared for the farm animals, mainly cattle, pigs and chickens, as well as hundreds of cats, many dogs and any bird that would eat from her feeder or sing in her trees.
She had the most beautiful laugh and an infectious smile. She loved easily and without judgment. After my mom passed away, she took in my second mom as a daughter without question.
We had reason to worry about Grandma only after G stopped by on an unexpected visit just before Christmas. He didn’t find her at home, but instead, she was at the nursing home, in a room of her own. She was disoriented and while she spoke with him, she wasn’t able to sustain a conversation or to remember at the end who he was exactly. After making inquiries, we learned she had been in the hospital for an infection and a serious fall, but a full recovery was expected. My sister spoke with Grandma briefly and thought she sounded as if perhaps she had suffered a minor stroke.
Over the next few days we continued to check in by phone, making sure there was improvement, but it was on Christmas Eve that we learned that she had been put back in the hospital after a confirmed stroke of some nature. She was incoherent and still fighting the infection. We debated about when to go, what to do, how to help. We waited for good news and each day marked her progress by the decreases, minor, but seemingly steady, in her white blood cell count.
A week later the doctor informed us in her now daily call that Grandma had remarkably declined during the night and the prognosis was not good at all. We all spent our New Year’s Eves with heavy hearts knowing she probably would not last the night.
And while I know it is truly a blessing from God and that there is nothing Grandma wanted more than to go home to Heaven, it was with incredible sorrow that we laid her to rest today. My dad spoke at her service with beautiful words reminding us of the legacy that she left behind. Just like my mother, there were no riches or fame, there were no high degrees earned or widespread notariety. Grandma was a simple farm wife from small town Illinois, living her life quietly and lovingly for Christ.
I know there is no sorrow in Heaven. I know that both my mom and my grandma are free from pain, free from cancer, free from infection, free from age and weary bones. I know that joy has been multiplied for all of them together. Children reunited with their loving mother and their loving Savior.
A couple years ago (has it really been that long) I wrote about the greatest gift I will ever receive; the letters that my grandma saved from my mom for all those years. Over the past few days, sorting through some of her things in an effort to help my uncle, we found boxes and boxes and boxes of pictures and letters amongst her things. Letters dated 1893 in some cases. Photos of great-great-great-grandparents. It will take months for me to sort through it all and to sift through and organize all the family history that she recorded, all the letters she has saved and all the pictures.
Many people came to her visitation and her services. Cousins I have not seen in more than 15 years. Relatives that have not spoken in their lifetimes. Neighbors who have cared about each other for generations. As difficult as it was for many of us to be there under such circumstances, I know how pleased Grandma was to have all of these people together again.
In Memoriam, many people made donations to the American Legion Auxilary where my grandma was a past President and member for many years. Some donated to the United Methodist Church where she attended for most of her life until they sold the farm and moved to town. Some donated to the hospital or the nursing home. Many, of course, sent flowers and plants.
For me, I know what Grandma would want me to do most. Write a letter. To her, there was no greater gift than to receive a letter in the mail from someone she cared about. Tell someone in written words that they can reflect on for a lifetime what they mean to me. Treasure the people we love and make sure they know how much we love them. Make sure that everyone can see Christ clearly through our example, through our love and through our lives. I encourage all of you, to take the time today, tomorrow, this week, to write someone. Put it down on paper. It doesn’t need to be eloquent. It doesn’t need to be fancy. Grandma didn’t just save the letters that said something profound, or were scripted just so. She loved the little nuggets of every day life. And reading them now, that’s what I treasure about them, too. I love that my mom talked about the silly things we did as kids. The big accomplishments I remember clear enough on my own, but the funny way I pronounced a word or the fight I had with her on some Wednesday when I was 10, I would never have recalled.
You never know just how that one letter might just become the greatest gift and a profound legacy that will last for generations upon generations. And while I will forever treasure and cherish these boxes of letters and all the stories and memories they contain, I’m really going to miss the letters from Grandma in my mailbox.
