Grandma

May 29, 2010

To say that I'm not good at goodbyes is a serious understatement. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and regularly suffer the consequences of it. But I can't seem to help myself. There are times, occasionally, when I am grateful that I do. I suppose today is one of them.

We found out recently that my dear Grandma is very sick. This may be the last year we have with her. I still can't wrap my brain around it, and my heart is nowhere near following the news. Everything in me says we were never made for this. But oh, how sweet a reunion heaven will be! You never realize how much, until you lose someone... I guess that is just the way of it.

The hardest thing about this is not knowing how much longer we've got. Months? Years? Maybe days only. Right now she is napping in her chair just inside, and I could walk right in there and give her a hug if I want. We chatted over lunch today, and she told me more than once how proud of me she is, and it was just a beautiful day full of life and laughter and conversation.

It is strange to me to think that, very soon, time will move us past the point where we can just sit and talk. Someday, maybe not too far from here, she will have moved on to some other place, and I won't get to hug her, I won't get to make her laugh, or hear the “I'm proud of you, girl” until I have also left this space. So much to think about, and so much I don't know.

Life is such a crazy, unknowable thing. God must be such a crazy God to set us all down here, and let go, and let everything just take it's course. The living, the dying, the sinning, and the extraordinary love. Crazy, crazy Life and crazy God!

I have come so far this year, and learned so much. I don't care what anybody says about where I am (it seems everyone has had an opinion about me of late), I know that I am changed, I know that I am growing, I know, at long last, that I am okay just being me. I am finally someone I want to be around.

Grandma said this morning that when you're by yourself, at least you know you're in good company. She said it with that smile, with that dry sense of humor. And I felt a burst of love for her, something I wouldn't trade for anything. She has lived well, and shared herself well with us. I hope someday, that I am like her, that I can take these memories of her into the rest of my life. That someday, I may grow old and start to drift into the Otherworld, and someone who loved me may stay behind and want to love as I did. I hope I have someone to pass the love down to...

God, I want to write so badly. I want to share it all with the world. I want somehow to connect all the pieces and fill in all the cracks with life and connect us all through these words. I want to leave behind something that matters. Oh, sweet Life, I want to fit you into words that people relate to, and grow from, and live a little deeper because of.

This house, I will never forget. There used to be a tree out here, that I loved. It is gone now, but like Grandma, it will always be part of me. It's purpose has been fulfilled in my life, and I will take it with me wherever I go. I spent my childhood underneath it's branches, dreaming. I was part of it and it was part of me, and now we are inseparable. Someday I will write it into my stories and others will know a little piece of it too. That is the way of things. We live, and we share, and we move on to another part of life and leave the rest behind us. We take with us some of the things we want, or need, and let go of what we don't. I am finally learning to accept this cycle. I am not so afraid of the loss anymore.

So much to remember, and to set down for others to know too. The woods out here, so full of mystery in my childhood, are always the woods that come to mind when I read. Most likely I will never explore them again, they are part of the past now, and they will always be the place where the unknown exists and thrives. I believe without a doubt that the door to Narnia, or Wonderland, or some other strange and wonderful place lies within them. I may never find it now, but it is enough to believe it is there.

This house is full of things that sparkle. That is something I will always remember. The little figurines that sparkle, like the sparkle in her eyes. This is a beautiful, beautiful little piece of life I am living. I do not believe I will ever forget this.

The dogwood tree is gone now, too. The one that was always the backdrop for Easter pictures, all of us squinting in the sunlight, and ready for playclothes and southern cooking and football in the yard. I used to play with the boys for awhile, and then get distracted by the hunt for a four-leafed clover, or that swing that I never thought I could outgrow.

I have always loved the house across the street, with the red roof and the double chimneys. I have always wanted to know what's inside. Part of me is glad I don't now. Sometimes the experience of mystery is better than the mystery revealed.

The rocking chairs on the porch have aged, to where they are barely usable. I noticed when I was here last, that that tiny chair where I used to place whatever stuffed animal I was most attached to, has gotten weathered, and will most likely be thrown out before long.

What is the purpose of our lives, I wonder? Were we just meant to live out our days, and come home to Jesus, and do the best we can? I think that's what I've been doing of late... just existing. I don't know if it's enough, but honestly I don't want or expect anything from Grandma. I just want her to be her. I don't need her to do anything, I simply want relationship with her while she's here. I try so hard sometimes to be something or earn something... and I wonder if God doesn't just want me to be me, and nothing else. I bet he just loves me like I am, and doesn't need me to try.

Oh, how I am not ready to let her go. I think this is helping, though. Just being here, just writing a bit, and thinking about her and all the memories here. I hope and pray we get another Christmas. But I am confident about life in the future now. I am confident that living is enough, and I get to choose to some degree the how and where I am living. But living and loving and sharing may well be the point. And I am ready to do more of it.

I am ready to be a writer now. This year has been tough on me, and I have lost a lot of dreams I thought were just about to come true. I thought it was the end, and now I know... somehow, in this space, I know it is not. I know that it doesn't matter so much as I thought. I know that my life isn't ending now, that there is much more to be lived. And it's okay if it takes me a little longer to fall in love. I think it will be okay in the end after all.

I am looking forward to being on my own again, to connecting within myself. To writing, and loving God, and facing life bravely. This next season might just be the sweetest of my life. And I am ready. I am not quite so scared of life as I used to be. I think this season of self loathing and uncertainty is almost over. I am ready to embrace life, and embrace myself, and just be me. I think that is all I am supposed to be anyway.

Man, I remember the taste of rock candy here. I remember frilly, handmade curtains and butterflies and soap operas. This is a good home, and I am more okay with my life now. I am glad this is part of me.

I am glad, too, that she is moving on. No more struggling to get around. And if God is who he says he is, it will all be okay. She will be loved and taken care of, and we will see her again before long. We are so, so blessed. Because one day, we will be called Home. That memory of home that was imprinted in our hearts, that we've tried all of our lives to recreate here. God will call us by our names, and lead us home, and we will finally be together again. I trust him, right now, more than I normally do. I think his plan is alright. I think he knows what he's doing. I think we're in better hands than we imagine.

This is a beautiful, sunny day, and I love to just sit outside and write. What am I thinking, not doing this more often? I can do this pretty much whenever I like, I don't know why I don't. I think God is here, today, holding my heart and leading me through this. This trip may well be my goodbye, or at least the beginning of it. And I know right now that he is here too, and has not left my side.

Oh, how life will never be the same again! But that is how things progress, and more life waits around the corner. New life. And it will all be okay. We all have to move on someday.

I will miss that little church, and the unique way we sang “He Lives”. I already miss dresses with lace and bold color and sitting through a sermon that felt just a little too long. Ham with that brown sugar glaze and deviled eggs, and fantastic little rolls that leave me stuffed. Hard to believe it is all passing by, it is almost behind us. You never know, in the middle of them, the moments that are most important. But somehow they know to go ahead and hang on, in your memory, and you never really lose them.

Strange that life led me here, to this porch, when my grandmother was moving on to Heaven, to let me know that I am a writer. I know, right now, that I am. That I am born to be, meant to be, that no amount of publishing matters. I will write, and leave it behind, and someone else will find it. And it just matters. We don't even have to know why. I only know it does. God made me a writer, and I write. And that is all.

It feels good just to get it out. I don't know why I stopped. I hope I never stop writing again. I hope I do this every day, for the rest of my life... and time will make sense of it all someday. I don't have to know where the story is going yet. Only that it is still going.

Tomorrow, they will get here... Chris, and Lisa, and share with me in this. I wish Keri could be here, but circumstances did not allow her to be. It is funny how much a part of each other's lives we all are. I love them more deeply than I knew I could. Sometimes you don't even know, until you stop to think deeply about the lives around you.

And I know, now, that I am lovable. I haven't really known, this whole year. It has been a question in my mind for some time now, especially since... he... didn't choose to, and I cared oh, so much for him. I thought that maybe I wasn't lovable. But that is ridiculous. And someone will see it someday, and it doesn't even matter who doesn't see it. That doesn't change who I am at all.

He is crazy for missing out on me. I am many things, and I am a bundle of unfinished business even, but I am not unlovable. I really don't know what he's thinking. He could have been part of this with me. He could have met my Grandma, and been here for me through this. But his choices have led him down some other road, and it is one I don't care to follow unless I'm invited. And at this point, maybe not even then. Life is so very strange, though. I waited so long to fall in love, and still picked the wrong guy. But none of that matters now, I suppose.

I don't know why or how I'm supposed to make it alone. But here I go :)