Grace for the Hard Times (5/3/2010)
In May two years ago, my grandmother had a fall that proved to be the beginning of the end. In the months that followed, her health declined rapidly, and on July 4, 2008 she passed away. I’ve blogged a number of times about items that I kept from her house. One item I haven’t mentioned in the nearly two years since grandma’s death is a black journal of sorts. In it, my very reserved grandmother did not pour out her innermost thoughts. She used the book, which was really a ledger, to record dates, travel, and some costs.
Most people would probably have thrown this away because it doesn’t, at first glance, contain anything personal about my grandmother. But I kept it. And after flipping through it, I know why. It may look like just a series of dates, but when you read between the lines, it is very revealing.
The first part of the book records grandma’s travels from the mid 1970s through the 1990s. Widowed when her sons were in their teens, grandma never remarried. Once her sons were out of school and married or in college, grandma became part of a group called the Nomads. This group traveled all over the place. The places recorded in her little ledger include England (multiple times), Nantucket, Nova Scotia, Savannah, GA, L.A., a Shaker village in Kentucky, New Mexico, Alaska, Mackinac Island, Yosemite, Canada, the Caribbean, Finland, and Sweden. She also visited family regularly in Michigan, Ohio, and Texas. She recorded the surgeries, hospitalizations, and deaths of friends and family, and my bridal shower and wedding. She recorded purchase of a stove, the costs of a visit from a plumber, and the items she put in one of my mother’s many garage sales.
But as you get near the last part of the record, in the 2000s, you see a distinct change. She isn’t recording as many trips. Instead, the lines are filled with tests, medications, and procedures. A tooth pulled, an ultrasound, a colonoscopy, a sprained foot, and the dosages of a number of pills. Never one to complain or share her troubles with others, grandma didn’t let on to her grandchildren how her health was failing. I’m sure my mother pried it out of her (in love), but we never knew.
On a page recording events in 2002, grandma lists a physical, a mammogram, a chest x-ray, two CAT scans, visits to her doctors about her sinuses and her esophagus, and surgery for cataracts and her sinuses. But in the midst of it all is this entry:
May 2 to May 14 – Cherry tree blossomed
What a woman. In the course of what had to be a taxing year, she thought it significant enough to record the blossoming of a tree outside her window. And what a good reminder to all of us to realize God’s blessings amidst our trials.
