His arm reached around me and pulled me close, as if He was trying to pull all my frazzled parts together and center me in my grief.
My heart was aching as I felt his lips press behind my ear. Tears made their way down my cheeks. The first waves of grief rolled over me. We lay there, listening to the mocking bird outside the window, my baby sons breath. I struggled for solid and real, pulling my whirling mind to a halt.
Thirteen months.
Years ago thirteen months separated the loss of my two Grandfathers, now thirteen months separates the loss of my two Grandmothers. Two beautiful women who shaped my life with withered hands and wise words.
My heart hurts.
But it isn’t a bad hurt. I’ve learned to not identify grief as an enemy. As I feel my soul ache I know I can allow it to lead my heart to either contract inward, or pour out.
I choose to pour out.
I let the pain be a pain to grow on. Choose to open myself and to reach out and I breathe “Thank You” into this early morning.
And I Thank Him for answering my prayer, prayed just hours before she passed. I prayed He’d bring her ease, and He did.
Yes and I Thank Him for all the years, for the beauty that was she, for the stitches placed and lessons learned, bent over sewing machine in a sewing room that always lit my imagination.
I thank Him for this beautiful woman who taught me what faithfulness was, personified.
Oh, I am sad, but I am also glad, because now her memory and mind are restored, the frustrations and confusion of these final years done and gone, her body strong.
She’s probably golfing on a heavenly course, or singing in a heavenly choir, (both my Grandmothers are probably singing in that choir) or discovering the most beautiful fabrics that defy imagination, studded with jewels and waiting for her creative hands.
And she’s with Grandpa again.
Whispering a quiet request that Christ could give her a hug from me, I turn and snuggle into my husband, and I release her, this woman I love so dearly. I know I’ll need to let go over and over for a bit. The heart will reach out and find her missing and it will hurt as any amputation would, but it will heal, and she is whole.
Welcome into your rest, faithful woman.
Lois Evelyn Beck
April 20, 1924 – March 23, 2017
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.
Do you believe this?”John 11:25-26 NKJV
Writing has become part of my emotional process. So here I type. I hope you can find beauty and hope in my mess. Today I remember my Grandma Lois, who passed into glory last night.
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