For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to tear, and a time to sow;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)
I read these words at my grandmother’s funeral. I had to keep my voice monotone to keep my voice steady. I kept blinking to keep the tears at bay. I loved my grandma. She died in April 2002 and 11 years later, I still miss her. Recently, while talking with the therapists who were working with me and my youngest son regarding his RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder), I realized all the more what an important person my grandma was in my emotional development. One therapists said to me, “the reason you have been able to attach and have good relationships is because your grandmother is who you attached to as a child.” I realized instantly he was right. I didn’t attach to my mom. It wasn’t really her fault. She was barely 19 yrs old when I was born. I am sure she spent most of her pregnancy anxious, worried, and stressed out because what little I do know of her parents, I am sure they gave her no end of grief about getting pregnant out-of-wedlock. She and my dad got married, but he was away at college. He had to hitchhike home to see me and my mom a few days after I was born. It just wasn’t an ideal situation for any of us.
My parents grew up in the same town. My mother’s mother died when I was two. I don’t have any memories of her at all. However, I spent a lot of time with my paternal grandparents. From about the age of four, my dad would take me and my younger sister (and eventually my other younger sister) over to my grandparents every Saturday after he finished playing golf. My mother never came along. It was her time to do whatever it was that she was doing. I don’t remember that my grandma was a particularly affectionate or cuddly grandma, but I always knew that she loved me. People fussed a lot over my sisters. They were both beautiful little girls while I was just plain. People often didn’t see me at first. But my grandma did. The routine of going over there, the predictability I craved that there would always be Oreo cookies in the cookie jar and Wise potato chips in the cabinet, that my grandma would be puttering around in the kitchen, grandpa sitting at the kitchen table, while my sisters and I played games in the living room, or dragged the HUGE box of crayons out to draw/color. Grandma’s house was my safe place.
Grandma was my champion. She made me feel special. When in third grade I was invited to a sleep-over party for the first time, she knew how devastating it was that my mother wouldn’t get me a new sleeping bag. I was to use the ugly ones we took on camping trips. I knew all the other girls would have pretty, fancy ones. I poured out my heart to my grandma about the unfairness of it. The next day she dropped off a new, red-white-and-blue stars and stripes sleeping bag for me. When I was in fourth grade, my sisters and I all got pneumonia. My sisters were younger and perhaps their cases were more serious, so they got to go to the hospital, and people visited them and fussed over them. I, on the other hand, just had to recuperate at home. For two weeks. In bed. Round about the fourth day, my grandma sent my grandpa over to our house with the little black-and-white TV from their bedroom, and a box of Andes mint chocolates. Just for me. Andes were her favorite candy. They became my favorite candy. To this day, I just have to see that little green wrapper, and I think about my grandma.
There are stories galore like these many of them racing through my mind as I droned on the words of Ecclesiastes at her funeral. I thought about how she’d be back with my grandpa, the man she married “for lust.” (When I asked my grandma why she chose my grandpa instead of a rich lawyer like her mother wanted her to marry, she said “I married for lust.” My grandpa was an incredibly handsome man, especially in his youth.) When My Love died, I thought how happy my grandma would be to see him again. She loved him from their very first meeting. Like my grandma, I married for lust.
~ The Reluctant Widow
