Not long after receiving the call that my grandma was in the hospital, I found myself in the kitchen. An unfortunate by-product of having a family is feeding them. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Normally there is a fair amount of drudgery in the dinner experience for me; trying to cook amidst squeals and screams, force-feeding my small people, and then immediately cleaning up the inevitable messes. Not my favorite.
But something was different on that particular evening.
It was almost an out-of-body experience, my senses both heightened and dulled by the news of potential loss. Peeling carrots, shredding cheese, whisking a roux - small moments of normalcy intoxicated with the immanent.
Since that call, I have found myself acutely aware that we live in the “now and not yet.” The kingdom of God was surely inaugurated in the first coming of Christ, but it has not yet found its fulfillment. Death has no ultimate power over those who know God, for we are promised resurrection bodies and eternity with Christ. But that happy truth is tethered to the inescapable presence of Death among us in this present age.
To love someone on the brink of eternity is a strange and holy thing. It is a stark and obvious intersection of the temporal and eternal, which brings into focus all the other ways that heaven breaks into our everyday. It gives one fresh eyes to see the sacred in things that have become overly familiar. The last traces of baby smell that linger on Jericho’s skin, the perfect turn of Phoenix’s curls on a humid day, the crisp blue of Josh’s eyes … these things became miracles.
I was in yoga class on a Monday when a YMCA employee came to tell me that Josh was in the lobby. As I quietly rolled my mat and slipped out of the room, I imagined all possible reasons for this interruption. Our minds are amazingly complex … I knew exactly what he’d come to tell me, but I deceived myself in entertaining other possibilities.
After a lifetime of faithful service to Christ, my grandma took her last breaths that Sunday night, January 10th.
Mourning her loss means allowing Grief to be my ever-present passenger again for a season. Having been introduced before, I thought I would know exactly how to navigate our relationship. But, as it turns out, grief is not that consistent. Mourning a particular person in a particular season brings a very particular pain. For me, this time, I started stuck in the mire of numbness and emotional volatility, which admittedly made me a miserable person to be around.
And, for some reason, the loss seems to strike me afresh when I'm in my kitchen. Not every time I cook - only those times where I find a strange balance between focus and contemplation. Grating ginger, carefully avoiding my fingers while simultaneously basking in the sharp, herbal scent that my grandma loved so much. Watching swirls of sour cream slowly disappear as I mash potatoes, remembering all the Thanksgiving dinners where my grandma would stand at the stove whisking gravy. Sprinkling freshly cut tomatoes with herbs and garlic to roast for spaghetti, thinking about how she relished in beautiful produce (and anything else that grew from the Earth).
The tediousness of cooking for my young family has been imbued with new meaning for me - largely because I know that my efforts in the kitchen would make my grandma so proud. The ways she loved were not grandiose or extravagant; she loved with meals, with presence, with a listening ear, with understanding, with greenery, with prayer. She wasn't changing the whole world, she just showed up every day to care well for her people. I'm learning the eternal significance of seemingly small acts of love, and Grief is a patient, long-suffering teacher.
