Yesterday I shared the news that my grandmother had died, my mixed feelings about that, and one of the things I've come up with in thinking about my reaction to her death: be today the person you want to be remembered as when you're gone.
Today's post is going to be longer, but I hope you bear with me. The other things I've learned from my grandmother's life are things that have been on my mind for a while. In my last semester of seminary I had to write part of a sermon series, and I chose to write on hospitality. The sermon from that series that I actually wrote was on hospitality when it's difficult, and it heavily featured my grandmother's relationship with me and my family. Here are the two sections about her:
For example, this past Thanksgiving Jeff and I went to pick her up for the family celebration at my cousin’s house, as she no longer drives. My grandmother and my cousin live at opposite corners of a large rectangle formed by four freeways, each of which runs very nearly perfectly north-south or east-west, making the distance the same either way. Yet, as Jeff and I drove her to my cousin’s house—doing her a favor!—she spent the entire ride complaining about how long it was taking and criticizing Jeff for not taking the other way, her preferred way. We spent the evening in what was largely a beautiful celebration with the majority of my family as well as Jeff’s immediate family. Yet, it was punctuated every few minutes by her yelling demands for attention or service, as though none of the other twenty people in the house were busy, were themselves trying to eat dinner and enjoy themselves, or were a three year old and a three month old who frankly needed the attention more than her. She told me, yet again, that I was getting pudgy and if I wasn’t careful about eating so much I’d end up like my mother. Then, on the way home, as we took “her way,” she spent the entire time not saying how nice it had been to see everyone, what good hosts my cousins had been, how good my mother’s and mother in law’s and aunt’s cooking had been, how cute her great-grandchildren were, or how nice it was for Jeff and I to go out of our way to take her home, but saying, “See, isn’t this so much faster? I don’t know why you didn’t take this way the first time. Nobody ever listens to me.” (For the record, I timed it. It wasn’t faster.)
And you know what?
Whether that person is your grandmother or your annoying neighbor, your sometimes-friend or your kid’s awkward best friend, they are probably the ones who need your hospitality the most. They are probably the ones who hear least often that they are appreciated, that they are valued, that they are loved.
My grandmother has had a difficult life, and unfortunately she has reacted to it by becoming someone who is difficult to be around; yet, because she is difficult to be around, her fears of abandonment are confirmed and her feelings of loneliness are amplified, making her still more bitter and spiteful. She never says so because I think she may have forgotten how, but I think she feels best when she sees us, even if she is still finding something else to complain about, because we are reminding her that she is not alone.
This Christmas when our youth sold items made for us by congregation members, I bought my grandmother a simple length of knitted red yarn held together with a big gold safety pin that Jody had made. It was an afterthought; it hadn’t sold by the end of the sale, and it just struck me that it was my grandmother’s favorite color. Plus, she’s complained all my life about how cold her neck is. So I paid the few dollars we’d priced it at to bump up our sales a bit more, stuck it in an envelope, and sent it down to Texas. It has been years since I have heard my grandmother as happy and as truly grateful for something as she was when she called me to thank me for that little neck warmer. There was no anger, no guilt, no rudeness in that phone call; just gratitude for an act of kindness that seemed to me so small and insignificant, for having been remembered.
Today's post is going to be longer, but I hope you bear with me. The other things I've learned from my grandmother's life are things that have been on my mind for a while. In my last semester of seminary I had to write part of a sermon series, and I chose to write on hospitality. The sermon from that series that I actually wrote was on hospitality when it's difficult, and it heavily featured my grandmother's relationship with me and my family. Here are the two sections about her:
Today
we’re going to get down to the potentially ugly business of offering
hospitality to the people who make it difficult, to the people we don’t like,
to the people we know but we kind of wish we didn’t.
My mom’s mom is one of these people for me. She is a difficult guest, to put it lightly. She has always lived close to my family, and back when she was still driving, she would invite herself over to our house unexpectedly and then criticize my mother for not cleaning for her arrival. If we did happen to invite her over, she was even more harsh. My grandmother’s visits have always been punctuated with rude remarks, barking demands, and sharp criticism.
My mom’s mom is one of these people for me. She is a difficult guest, to put it lightly. She has always lived close to my family, and back when she was still driving, she would invite herself over to our house unexpectedly and then criticize my mother for not cleaning for her arrival. If we did happen to invite her over, she was even more harsh. My grandmother’s visits have always been punctuated with rude remarks, barking demands, and sharp criticism.
For example, this past Thanksgiving Jeff and I went to pick her up for the family celebration at my cousin’s house, as she no longer drives. My grandmother and my cousin live at opposite corners of a large rectangle formed by four freeways, each of which runs very nearly perfectly north-south or east-west, making the distance the same either way. Yet, as Jeff and I drove her to my cousin’s house—doing her a favor!—she spent the entire ride complaining about how long it was taking and criticizing Jeff for not taking the other way, her preferred way. We spent the evening in what was largely a beautiful celebration with the majority of my family as well as Jeff’s immediate family. Yet, it was punctuated every few minutes by her yelling demands for attention or service, as though none of the other twenty people in the house were busy, were themselves trying to eat dinner and enjoy themselves, or were a three year old and a three month old who frankly needed the attention more than her. She told me, yet again, that I was getting pudgy and if I wasn’t careful about eating so much I’d end up like my mother. Then, on the way home, as we took “her way,” she spent the entire time not saying how nice it had been to see everyone, what good hosts my cousins had been, how good my mother’s and mother in law’s and aunt’s cooking had been, how cute her great-grandchildren were, or how nice it was for Jeff and I to go out of our way to take her home, but saying, “See, isn’t this so much faster? I don’t know why you didn’t take this way the first time. Nobody ever listens to me.” (For the record, I timed it. It wasn’t faster.)
...
Sometimes,
the person to whom it is most difficult to offer hospitality is related to you,
and you really can’t get out of it.
And you know what?
Whether that person is your grandmother or your annoying neighbor, your sometimes-friend or your kid’s awkward best friend, they are probably the ones who need your hospitality the most. They are probably the ones who hear least often that they are appreciated, that they are valued, that they are loved.
My grandmother has had a difficult life, and unfortunately she has reacted to it by becoming someone who is difficult to be around; yet, because she is difficult to be around, her fears of abandonment are confirmed and her feelings of loneliness are amplified, making her still more bitter and spiteful. She never says so because I think she may have forgotten how, but I think she feels best when she sees us, even if she is still finding something else to complain about, because we are reminding her that she is not alone.
This Christmas when our youth sold items made for us by congregation members, I bought my grandmother a simple length of knitted red yarn held together with a big gold safety pin that Jody had made. It was an afterthought; it hadn’t sold by the end of the sale, and it just struck me that it was my grandmother’s favorite color. Plus, she’s complained all my life about how cold her neck is. So I paid the few dollars we’d priced it at to bump up our sales a bit more, stuck it in an envelope, and sent it down to Texas. It has been years since I have heard my grandmother as happy and as truly grateful for something as she was when she called me to thank me for that little neck warmer. There was no anger, no guilt, no rudeness in that phone call; just gratitude for an act of kindness that seemed to me so small and insignificant, for having been remembered.
So there are two things here that my grandmother's life taught me.
First, to always think about why a person might act the way they do. Without excusing the abuse my grandmother put us through, I can acknowledge and understand that the way she treated us was the result of a lifetime of being treated poorly herself. It doesn't make what she did ok, but it makes her easier to forgive- easier to love anyway.
Second, to remember that the way you treat others- even in interactions that seem insignificant to you- can drastically impact their life. I saw this both ways with my grandmother. The way that she treated me has left indelible marks on my life, both in scars and in my lifelong resolution to be as little like her as possible. On the other hand, I saw from time to time how even small kindnesses that I could show her made her, for a while, a kinder person again. As someone who struggles with depression myself, I've come to think of the good things that I do and that others do for and with me as things that hold back the darkness; I know that my grandmother also struggled with depression, and I like to think that times when she called me and I put on my calmest, kindest voice for her were times that held back her darkness for a while.
Moments of connection are what keep us human, and some people just don't get enough of those moments. I think in the end that may have actually been what killed my grandmother. I used to say she was living on pure bitterness at this point, but as she cut people off I think she, in a not insignificant way, died of loneliness. She wasn't alone when she died, but she was still lonely. She just gave up. No one should die that way, and it's one of the saddest things about all of this. I may not exactly mourn my grandmother's life, but I mourn the life she could have had.
So, one more time. This is your life. Are you who you want to be?
