Somewhere the other day I saw a rainbow of light reflected wanly from some unknown source onto a bleak off-white wall. I stared at it a long time, unthinking.
When I got home, I told K. I want to find some clear faceted balls like the ones in Mom's kitchen window. I want to see prisms of light brilliant against the walls of our home. I want to see her in the light she so loved.
I miss her. And I fear the deeper aches to come. On days like this, hope is merely a word; the future is too far away to comprehend. Yet one can always hope for hope.
Showing posts with label Mom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mom. Show all posts
25 March 2008
18 February 2008
From the Mouths of Babes . . .
All four of our married children -- the grandchildren -- and four of their children -- the great-grandchildren -- attended the memorial service for my mother-in-law: a lovely blessing indeed. Lots of sibling pictures were taken -- it was the first time in eight years all five were together -- and we look forward to receiving them in the days to come.
Our middle son's 5-year-old daughter was the questioner. Her daddy had prepared them for the service, discussing death and heaven and the fact that Grandma June was no longer here with us. "I wish Grandma was still alive," she would say now and then. Riding across Denton in the back seat of her daddy's van, she and I talked.
"Why is papa [Grandpa] giving Daddy money?"
"It's money from Grandma June to help Daddy pay for the motel so you could be here this weekend."
Puzzled look: "Grandma June is still alive?"
"No; she left some money to help people."
"She can help people after she died?"
"Yes -- before she died, she left some money with us that we could use for her to help people."
After digesting that for a while, "Is Grandma June in heaven?"
"Yes, she's with Jesus now."
"I'm afraid to go to heaven."
"You needn't be -- Jesus loves you very much, and when it's time for you to live in heaven, you'll live with Him forever, and see Grandma again, too."
"Can we go to heaven in a rocket ship?"
"Well, no -- heaven isn't the kind of place you can get to in a rocket ship or a car or an airplane. Jesus has to take you there when it's time for you to go."
Eyes wide with sudden insight, voice breathless with delight:
"You mean Jesus picks us up in His arms and carries us there?"
Our middle son's 5-year-old daughter was the questioner. Her daddy had prepared them for the service, discussing death and heaven and the fact that Grandma June was no longer here with us. "I wish Grandma was still alive," she would say now and then. Riding across Denton in the back seat of her daddy's van, she and I talked.
"Why is papa [Grandpa] giving Daddy money?"
"It's money from Grandma June to help Daddy pay for the motel so you could be here this weekend."
Puzzled look: "Grandma June is still alive?"
"No; she left some money to help people."
"She can help people after she died?"
"Yes -- before she died, she left some money with us that we could use for her to help people."
After digesting that for a while, "Is Grandma June in heaven?"
"Yes, she's with Jesus now."
"I'm afraid to go to heaven."
"You needn't be -- Jesus loves you very much, and when it's time for you to live in heaven, you'll live with Him forever, and see Grandma again, too."
"Can we go to heaven in a rocket ship?"
"Well, no -- heaven isn't the kind of place you can get to in a rocket ship or a car or an airplane. Jesus has to take you there when it's time for you to go."
Eyes wide with sudden insight, voice breathless with delight:
"You mean Jesus picks us up in His arms and carries us there?"
28 January 2008
"Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light"
For June, my mother-in-law, whom I loved
28 November 1930 - 27 January 2008
Our students often wonder why so much literature is "dark and depressing." Among other reasons is that Death is the one universal, the one mystery that will happen to us all. Philip Larkin was right to fear Death, if for the wrong reason: Death does not bring annihilation, as he believed, but a more fearful prospect yet -- judgment. Emily Dickinson likened Death to a gentleman suitor, and, while I love the poem, I find it too kindly. The Christian has hope, it's true, and need not fear Death, but Death is not natural or kindly; it is a result of sin having been introduced into the world. I'm far more sympathetic to Dylan Thomas's urging: "Do not go gentle into that good night; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
She didn't rage, but she didn't go gentle, either: she lived in the face of the inevitable, inexorable, and agonizing Death pursuing her. Less than a month ago we sat on her back porch sorting through pictures and listening to stories of her younger days. She emailed us a few times after that, and called her younger son one last time to say the final good-bye early last week. I received a letter from her last week, too, a letter I had no chance to answer, in which she asked about syntax that she questioned in an article she'd read. Loving, learning, living.
She lived every moment of her life, and she gave us love and laughter and beauty and wisdom until the very last. And so I rage for her against the dying of the light, the sin that gives Death power over us all, the devastating brokenness of this world. I know the promises and I believe them. But we were not created to be torn away from each other through Death -- who, yes, will die, and the sooner the better.
Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus.
28 November 1930 - 27 January 2008
Our students often wonder why so much literature is "dark and depressing." Among other reasons is that Death is the one universal, the one mystery that will happen to us all. Philip Larkin was right to fear Death, if for the wrong reason: Death does not bring annihilation, as he believed, but a more fearful prospect yet -- judgment. Emily Dickinson likened Death to a gentleman suitor, and, while I love the poem, I find it too kindly. The Christian has hope, it's true, and need not fear Death, but Death is not natural or kindly; it is a result of sin having been introduced into the world. I'm far more sympathetic to Dylan Thomas's urging: "Do not go gentle into that good night; / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."
She didn't rage, but she didn't go gentle, either: she lived in the face of the inevitable, inexorable, and agonizing Death pursuing her. Less than a month ago we sat on her back porch sorting through pictures and listening to stories of her younger days. She emailed us a few times after that, and called her younger son one last time to say the final good-bye early last week. I received a letter from her last week, too, a letter I had no chance to answer, in which she asked about syntax that she questioned in an article she'd read. Loving, learning, living.
She lived every moment of her life, and she gave us love and laughter and beauty and wisdom until the very last. And so I rage for her against the dying of the light, the sin that gives Death power over us all, the devastating brokenness of this world. I know the promises and I believe them. But we were not created to be torn away from each other through Death -- who, yes, will die, and the sooner the better.
Maranatha, come, Lord Jesus.
13 November 2007
The Generosity of Centered Love
for June, who has loved me
Some 34 years ago, I happened to work in the curriculum library at The University of Kansas, reshelving and rearranging and doing whatever projects the director needed me to do. A strikingly beautiful woman with a soft Southern accent happened to be a doctoral student under the director, with a desk in the library’s office area. Her inevitable kindness, her ready smile and laugh won me instantly – and one day she invited her younger son to take us out to lunch at Pizza Hut, thereby (not quite unknowingly) selecting her daughter-in-law.
From the first, June considered me a daughter, loving me neither less nor differently than she loved her own children. And I have always called her “mom,” because she immediately became a second mother to me, as precious as my own.
Sometimes I envied her energy and her talents. She could make anything on a sewing machine from a simple skirt to complex valanced drapes. She could cook anything from scratch and taught me to love simple beans and cornbread as well as exotic tabuli. She canned and froze and dried the produce of the family farm and in her children’s youth had driven the tractor, planted trees, and helped put out the fire that younger son inadvertently started in the outhouse. Her eye for beauty ensures that nothing in her various homes has been accidental or happenstance, and each one has inevitably been both elegant and comfortable, truly home to all who step across the threshold. She taught economics and home economics at Texas Women’s University and she is an artist and a landscaper and a homemaker par excellence.
But I understood immediately that she didn’t expect me to be like her, that she realized that my upbringing, my talents, my preferences and abilities, even my lesser store of energy are uniquely mine and to be valued as such. Never have I felt a moment’s slightest disappointment from her, but only encouragement to follow my own paths, to excel in being the woman I was created to be. And while I’ve not, sad to say, learned to sew or cook or decorate my home in the complex ways she does, I have learned from her anew the most important lesson my own mother has always impressed on me, not by speech but by example.
For Mom generously, fiercely loves people, with a deep loyalty and a vulnerability that draw and enfold. All that she does arises from this love. When she bakes bread and prepares a lovely pot roast and a sumptuous dessert, it is an offering of time and love to those who will share it, as is the time given to teach her grandchildren to sew and draw and paint, showering love along the way. Her home opens vistas of quiet beauty where guests feel free to relax, from the cushioned window seat and afghans in the den and deep leather couches in the living room to scented soaps on the bathroom sinks and lush down pillows on the beds. Her paintings – like the two I see each time I glance up from this writing – greet the viewer with a profusion of soft colors that draw the eye into a centered depth of beauty that is like the depth of her own centered love, the theme of all her interior decoration, even to simple trinkets hanging in a window.
One year, we arrived at Mom’s the Monday morning before Christmas, racing ahead of sleet and snow, the day sagging about us, grey and drizzly. Bringing dishes to the sink after lunch, I noted the several multi-colored, multi-shaped, flat pieces of glass hanging in the kitchen window that had been there since I could remember. Pretty, I thought, and didn't notice them again. Wednesday dawned bright, the ordinary sun dazzling after nearly a week's hiding behind the wintry grey. Around mid-morning, I started from the den toward the laundry room -- and was arrested by vivid rainbows reflected on the white walls, a brilliance that abruptly stilled my teeming mind. After catching my breath, I approached the window to find their origin, and, for the first time ever, I saw among the colored baubles two small, clear glass pieces: a ball and a teardrop, each with dozens of facets cut into the surface, joyfully refracting the sunlight into radiant beauty.
Simple elegance – yet with depth, richness, brilliance like the love of the woman who, with her instinct for beauty, hung the glass in that perfect place to provide moments of sudden delight. This is her way – not extravagance but quiet gestures that never waver, never halt, but need only the light of our gratefulness to break into beauty enough to delight the universe.
Some 34 years ago, I happened to work in the curriculum library at The University of Kansas, reshelving and rearranging and doing whatever projects the director needed me to do. A strikingly beautiful woman with a soft Southern accent happened to be a doctoral student under the director, with a desk in the library’s office area. Her inevitable kindness, her ready smile and laugh won me instantly – and one day she invited her younger son to take us out to lunch at Pizza Hut, thereby (not quite unknowingly) selecting her daughter-in-law.
From the first, June considered me a daughter, loving me neither less nor differently than she loved her own children. And I have always called her “mom,” because she immediately became a second mother to me, as precious as my own.
Sometimes I envied her energy and her talents. She could make anything on a sewing machine from a simple skirt to complex valanced drapes. She could cook anything from scratch and taught me to love simple beans and cornbread as well as exotic tabuli. She canned and froze and dried the produce of the family farm and in her children’s youth had driven the tractor, planted trees, and helped put out the fire that younger son inadvertently started in the outhouse. Her eye for beauty ensures that nothing in her various homes has been accidental or happenstance, and each one has inevitably been both elegant and comfortable, truly home to all who step across the threshold. She taught economics and home economics at Texas Women’s University and she is an artist and a landscaper and a homemaker par excellence.
But I understood immediately that she didn’t expect me to be like her, that she realized that my upbringing, my talents, my preferences and abilities, even my lesser store of energy are uniquely mine and to be valued as such. Never have I felt a moment’s slightest disappointment from her, but only encouragement to follow my own paths, to excel in being the woman I was created to be. And while I’ve not, sad to say, learned to sew or cook or decorate my home in the complex ways she does, I have learned from her anew the most important lesson my own mother has always impressed on me, not by speech but by example.
For Mom generously, fiercely loves people, with a deep loyalty and a vulnerability that draw and enfold. All that she does arises from this love. When she bakes bread and prepares a lovely pot roast and a sumptuous dessert, it is an offering of time and love to those who will share it, as is the time given to teach her grandchildren to sew and draw and paint, showering love along the way. Her home opens vistas of quiet beauty where guests feel free to relax, from the cushioned window seat and afghans in the den and deep leather couches in the living room to scented soaps on the bathroom sinks and lush down pillows on the beds. Her paintings – like the two I see each time I glance up from this writing – greet the viewer with a profusion of soft colors that draw the eye into a centered depth of beauty that is like the depth of her own centered love, the theme of all her interior decoration, even to simple trinkets hanging in a window.
One year, we arrived at Mom’s the Monday morning before Christmas, racing ahead of sleet and snow, the day sagging about us, grey and drizzly. Bringing dishes to the sink after lunch, I noted the several multi-colored, multi-shaped, flat pieces of glass hanging in the kitchen window that had been there since I could remember. Pretty, I thought, and didn't notice them again. Wednesday dawned bright, the ordinary sun dazzling after nearly a week's hiding behind the wintry grey. Around mid-morning, I started from the den toward the laundry room -- and was arrested by vivid rainbows reflected on the white walls, a brilliance that abruptly stilled my teeming mind. After catching my breath, I approached the window to find their origin, and, for the first time ever, I saw among the colored baubles two small, clear glass pieces: a ball and a teardrop, each with dozens of facets cut into the surface, joyfully refracting the sunlight into radiant beauty.
Simple elegance – yet with depth, richness, brilliance like the love of the woman who, with her instinct for beauty, hung the glass in that perfect place to provide moments of sudden delight. This is her way – not extravagance but quiet gestures that never waver, never halt, but need only the light of our gratefulness to break into beauty enough to delight the universe.
22 January 2006
Prisms of Love
My mother-in-law is an artist. We are privileged to have two of her paintings in our home, and we always look forward to seeing her new projects and techniques when we visit.
Her home is of course tastefully furnished and decorated, nothing elaborately "arty" but now and then a touch of beauty so rich it takes one's breath.
When we arrived the Monday morning before Christmas, racing ahead of sleet and snow, the day sagged about us, grey and drizzly. Bringing dishes to the sink after lunch, I noted the several multi-colored, multi-shaped peices of glass hanging in the kitchen window that had been there since I could remember. Pretty, I thought, and didn't notice them again.
Wednesday dawned bright, the ordinary sun dazzling after nearly a week's hiding behind the wintry grey. At some point, I started from the den towards the laundry room -- and was arrested by vivid rainbows reflected on the white walls, a brilliance that abruptly stilled my teeming mind. After catching my breath, I turned my eyes to find their origin -- the glass baubles in the window, of course.
A few minutes later, my high school science catching up with me, I realized the flat colored glass pieces couldn't have created those rainbows. Approaching the window again, for the first time ever I saw the two small, clear glass pieces among them: a ball and a teardrop, each with dozens of facets cut into the surface, joyfully refracting the sunlight into radiant beauty.
Simple -- yet with depth, richness, brilliance, like the love of the woman who, with her instinct for beauty, hung the glass in that perfect place to provide moments of sudden delight. And yet the source of that delight is constant, always available, its heart never changing, never less rich, always deeply beautiful.
Thank you for loving us, Mom, and teaching us so much of what love is. We thank God for you.
Her home is of course tastefully furnished and decorated, nothing elaborately "arty" but now and then a touch of beauty so rich it takes one's breath.
When we arrived the Monday morning before Christmas, racing ahead of sleet and snow, the day sagged about us, grey and drizzly. Bringing dishes to the sink after lunch, I noted the several multi-colored, multi-shaped peices of glass hanging in the kitchen window that had been there since I could remember. Pretty, I thought, and didn't notice them again.
Wednesday dawned bright, the ordinary sun dazzling after nearly a week's hiding behind the wintry grey. At some point, I started from the den towards the laundry room -- and was arrested by vivid rainbows reflected on the white walls, a brilliance that abruptly stilled my teeming mind. After catching my breath, I turned my eyes to find their origin -- the glass baubles in the window, of course.
A few minutes later, my high school science catching up with me, I realized the flat colored glass pieces couldn't have created those rainbows. Approaching the window again, for the first time ever I saw the two small, clear glass pieces among them: a ball and a teardrop, each with dozens of facets cut into the surface, joyfully refracting the sunlight into radiant beauty.
Simple -- yet with depth, richness, brilliance, like the love of the woman who, with her instinct for beauty, hung the glass in that perfect place to provide moments of sudden delight. And yet the source of that delight is constant, always available, its heart never changing, never less rich, always deeply beautiful.
Thank you for loving us, Mom, and teaching us so much of what love is. We thank God for you.
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