At Grandma's Funeral
They call it denial,
but you can’t tell me she’s dead. Some people are too big to die, and she’s one. The largess of her animating spirit has now joined with the Great Spirit she embodied in her own sinful and hilarious ways that taught us God’s wisdom in everyday things as she played endless children’s games (often cheating!), slipped extra butter and sugar into whatever she cooked, taught us to polka and jitterbug, applied arnica, Vicks VapoRub, calamine, mercurochrome, and castor oil to whatever ailed us, bought us 18 karat gold jewelry she sacrificed for, taught us to ride bikes, hopscotched, roller-skated, and sledded down the hill with all the rest of us kids, though well past the age when she should have. No, she simply cannot die. At baptism she died into life and lived the resurrection to its fullest, teaching Sunday school, singing louder than everyone else in church where she always had gum in her big Grandma purse from whence came offerings for all grandchildren-- money passed down the pew in a race to make it to the recipient before the plate got there. Even when I was thirty and and ordained she tried to give me money for an offering whenever I visited. It was her nature. So she couldn’t help herself. She was always giving. She gave most everything away-- her birthday, Christmas, anniversary presents-- admired with grace, then passed on to someone who could use them more, much to the givers' annoyance sometimes. Her porch was magic space, gathering people from across the nation who’d come to bask in her hospitality and argue religion and politics with sex talks reserved for the women in the kitchen-- all the things one didn't discuss in polite company. Whoever was there at 5:00, ate-- fried steak, baked beans, and cottage cheese-- every Saturday night. She served life at her Kingdom table And, in service to others in the community, demanded justice and fairness and an accurate account from public officials she bugged and bothered. "Right is right, and wrong is wrong," and "life is what you make it," she’d say, shaking her finger at ya, and with clear blue eyes under snow white hair, she’d look at you and you knew she meant business, and her business was Life in all its abundance. She was always about her Father’s business. She was nothing special to look at-- she wore old combat boots and her husband’s insulated flannel shirts over whatever came out of the drawer that morning, usually polyester pastels that generally matched ok. Truth is, she’d have been a good contestant for What Not to Wear except she’d have bought undershirts for the homeless with her five thousand dollars and fished her old stretched, stained clothes out of the garbage can, subduing even Stacy. She’d have endured the free haircut and would die before she’d wear lipstick, frustrating all artists of illusion. But there she’d stand at the end, decked out as the most glorious angel she was . . . and now is. So that body there dressed in a somber suit of sophisticated colors with fine textures, that face not smiling with radiant joy but masked in make-up with eyes closed, not looking, that hair not flying in the wind as she worked, those hands resting still-- that’s not her lying there. She’s gone. But she’s not dead because her life cannot die. It can only return from Whence it came, bossily demanding, “Follow me.” © 2007, Tess Lockhart. All rights reserved. |