My grandmother took her final rest in the early morning hours on Sunday, before sunrise. It was peaceful and loving and perfectly fitting for a life that reflected so much grace.
My “real life” circle already knows this, but I have recorded all of my formative moments on this journal, and I know I have to write something. But words seem completely inadequate sometimes. What do you say when you lose someone who is so cherished by those of us left behind? I don’t know.
It was past 11:00 when I finally got home to my empty house last night after the funeral visitation and then family time at my grandparents’ house. Sometimes words are not enough, so we rely on rituals. This week is reserved for those rituals of mourning. Receiving visitors and food and hugs. Singing hymns and listening to prayers of comfort. Glancing at pictures from years and years of a life well-spent. And finally, on Wednesday afternoon, lowering her body in the ground.
Seeing her body somehow feels so different than it usually feels for me to attend a funeral visitation, less unsettling and less haunted. Maybe it’s because I knew her so closely or maybe it is because it was such a gradual process that I walked alongside her these past few weeks. Whatever the reason, this time it is so clear to me that it is just a shell. There’s a line from Quaker writings in the nineteenth century that says, “You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.” This past month with my grandmother taught be innumerable lessons, but that is one of them.
I think she knew this always. It’s why everyone who met her loved her so much. She spoke to you soul-to-soul without any regard to the other stuff when the world around you only ever sees the other “stuff” as who you are.
The missing will come. The void and the absence is here already, but it still feels surreal. The missing will come later, and I know loss enough to know this. I will cry those tears at some point. But right now, the things that make my eyes sting and overflow are the details of beauty I’ve observed as she made her transition to the other side. There was so much sweetness in her passing, as hard as it is for us to let her go.
There are countless moments from this month that I will never, ever forget. Making pureed sweet potatoes like baby food for her to eat, wondering how many times she did the same for me. Watching little cousins play hide and seek last Sunday in her big hydrangea bush while she slept upstairs. Rubbing lotion on her tired hands, scarred from a life of love and work. Seeing her smile and squeeze my hand when I dripped water in her mouth from a tiny sponge. Listening to my Grandaddy sing hymns to her in her Emory hospital room when she was overwhelmed and upset, and then watching him silently hold space for her in the last 10 days that she spent at home. He never wavered, even once, from what real love is.
I will never, in all my life, forget what I have witnessed between the two of them in these last few weeks.
As I was talking with an old friend last night at the visitation, I was saying how grateful I am to be from a family that always taught me the value of loss and sadness, always showed me the whole picture. So many people in our culture don’t “do” sadness and don’t “do” death. They pretend it’s something we can somehow avoid by holding it distant. Like if you run fast enough and smile big enough and buy enough shiny new things, loss won’t really happen to you.
I wrote my grandmother’s obituary – perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever written. How do you sum up someone’s life in something like 300 words? As I wrote, I got to that last paragraph where you state the deceased’s loved ones – the list of people who passed before them and those they left behind. I realized that perhaps the most striking line of someone’s obituary is that list of who preceded them in death. It’s just a list of names that is so easy to breeze over as you read, but to really think about it and remember what loss feels like magnifies it. I listed her parents, both of them. Her oldest brother she adored so much as a mentor and her most trusted friend. Her youngest brother who died at 36 and left behind a wife and three kids. Her son-in-law, my own father, who passed at 31 and left my sister and me, alongside my mother. She held our hand so closely in that time when I know her own heart was broken, too. As I read those details and I look back, I’m astounded at the pain she endured in her lifetime. The process we all experience, letting go of people you can’t imagine living without.
Pain transforms you if you let it. I heard a radio interview once where someone referenced “the alchemy of pain” and I love that. It can be an almost magical process of transformation if you let it burn to completion in you. You can’t selectively numb emotions. You numb the pain or sadness, and your joy is dimmed as well
I’m seeing already how the well of sadness from the last month is echoing in a way that magnifies the connection I have with her. It’s like I press my ear to the sadness, and what I really hear beneath it is thank you, thank you, thank you.
Love goes on and on and on. Always.
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Mama the Reader 
Precious Girl, your words are beautiful. They capture the sweet, spiritual experience of being with a loved one when they pass from this world to Heaven. It’s a honor to be a part of that and you are right; it changes you. Your family will be in my thoughts and prayers in the days to come. We come from good people, and that’s a treasure that can never be valued.
Hugs for you, Katie.
My condolences on your loss. Thank you for sharing the beauty of your grandmother’s spirit through your words. Not just these words, in this entry, as I am sure she has often influenced your thoughts on life. Her never ending gift to you.
Thank you for writing that…Just thank you….
Condolences on your loss. Please take comfort in the fact that you are transforming your pain into such beautiful thoughts and words. Thank you.
Katie, I went to high school with your mom but we lost track of each other as we grew to adulthood and each of us went in different directions. I always enjoyed and respected your mom and now I have another reason to appreciate her. The values she instilled in you are important for our families, communities and our God. Thank you for all you have shared to allow us to continue to know and love your family. May God’s blessings continue to lead you and your family
Beautiful observations and eloquent revelations here, as always. Thank you for sharing this with us. Your ideas have stayed with me the last weeks, and they grow with me even more here.
So sorry for the loss of your precious grandmother. As always your words are so beautiful. I love that you share this with us. You need to put together a book down the road, more than just this blogging community, large though it may be, needs to have access to your writings. God’s blessing be with you and yours at this time.
This is just beautiful, honest and spot on. It’s really hard to put your head up and look around during such grief. Props to you for being able to see the beauty and face it head on. Inspiring, really. The paragraph where you talk about the sweet details of her last few weeks really struck a chord with me. Wishing you peace, love and abundant reflection during this difficult time.
I loved this. Thanks for sharing. I’ve recently lost two friends (one we’ve known for over 25yrs) due to a drunk driver. Your words really hit home.