May her soul rest in peace.
Yesterday, my maternal grandmother died – may God rest her soul... She was one hundred years old.
What does that mean? How does that look?
Well, it looks like a woman who was loved by all her children. It looks like a woman who outlived her husband, her brother, her sisters, her sisters in law, her brothers in law, her friends, and even a few of her own children and grandchildren and a great grandchild.
There is a lot of suffering in a long life. There are a lot of goodbyes. There is a lifetime of tears on this Earth. One hundred years of life on this Earth – if lived well – is one hundred years of sacrifice. It is one hundred years of trials.
And yet, my grandmother’s life was not a sad life. It was not a terrible life. Time and again when her health failed and doctors asked what her wishes were, my grandmother asked them to do all that they could to preserve her Earthly life.
And I have been reflecting on this life of my grandmother’s on the day following her death…
My maternal grandmother was illiterate. When she was a little girl in Lebanon, education was not valued and so she was never sent to school. I have always been academically gifted. I say this without pride, because this ability is given to me by God and is not merited by me.
And this academic ability of mine is inherited from my late maternal grandmother (and my late paternal grandmother as well). Both of these women had very sharp minds. And my maternal grandmother – despite her illiteracy – was fiercely intelligent and retained control of her cognition until the very last months of her life.
But there is more to it than that. It is my grandmother – my illiterate and uneducated grandmother – to whom I credit my postgraduate education. Perhaps it was her lack of opportunity that caused her to fight so fiercely for me to claim mine? When I wanted to complete my university studies at an undergraduate level, it was my maternal grandmother who told me – bluntly and without apology – that only a “donkey” would be stupid enough to give away the opportunity to further their education.
With the wisdom of hindsight and the value of time, I have come to realise that it was during those final postgraduate years at university that I learned to write (and publish my writing) to a standard that would allow me to write this piece of writing right now.
Though she – perhaps – never considered that the skills I would learn during those last few years at university, would somehow influence the way that I would make some memory of her known…
And I have been thinking about that too.
For in that moment of commitment to those studies, I was set upon the path that prepared me for this. I learned – in those last few years at university – how to write and how to write relatively well.
And perhaps – of all the things that I have ever done and of all the things that I will ever do, learning that skill will be the most important thing that God will ever ask of me.
And today – as I pray for the repose of the soul of my maternal grandmother, who lived to the age of one hundred, I pray for the Grace to understand that God asks things of me at various times in my life – and I pray for the Grace to hear Him, even when the people asking are not my grandmother, and not one hundred years old…
May her soul rest in peace.
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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