Big Mommy, my great-grandmother, is in heaven now. We had her funeral yesterday. I read to everyone at the service. I hadn't planned on participating, but several nights prior to the service, I sat up in bed thinking, unable to fall asleep. I started writing my thoughts down, and they congregated into a cohesive page of thoughts about Big Mommy. I hadn't shed a tear about Big Mommy's death before this, but as the words came to me, so did the tears. Putting on paper what I thought about Big Mommy unleashed the feelings I had inside. I shared the page with my mother, and she asked if I wanted to read it at the funeral. I said yes. Here is what I wrote that night and read to attendees of Big Mommy's celebration service:
Loving Hands
It is uncanny how someone’s departure can shed light on what their life has meant to you. It is like this: Every home possesses its own peculiar smell, and the members of each home are steeped in a signature scent. While living in the midst of this scent, the householders gradually cease to notice it. It is when they are removed from it and return to it that their senses are awakened to the aroma, and they can then appreciate its sweetness. Again: A stamp leaves a mark, but the stamp itself must be drawn away in order for one to perceive the imprint. In the same way, we all bear an imprint from Big Mommy and are beginning to see the mark more clearly than before. As we reflect on who she was, we can breathe in anew the fragrance of her life. It is a good fragrance.
I think back on her phrases that used to be humorous to me. These sayings of hers mean so much more to me now; once they amused me, but now they inspire me. I’m sure I’m not alone when I confess that when she prayed for God’s blessing on the food, I enjoyed listening for the wrong reasons. I would smile to myself as she thanked the Lord for our family being gathered together in “the bonds of love” and for the food prepared by “loving hands.” She would revisit both of these phrases any number of times within the span of a single prayer. Sometimes, it seemed to me, she did this for the sake of continuity in the prayer: if she fumbled for words, she resorted to these tried and true phrases to patch things up. At other times, she seemed to have simply forgotten mid-prayer what ground she had already covered and unwittingly repeated herself. After she had finally cinched the prayer off with an “amen,” I would chuckle about what a doozy of a prayer it had been this time.
But now I can smell the sweetness of those prayers. Whether because of forgetfulness or something else entirely, the reason she said those certain favorite words again and again was they were at the top of her heart; they were the true words overflowing her inner being, and they spilled over onto her tongue and into our ears and down into our lives. I don’t think she really revisited the same words so much as the words revisited her. She kept finding them in her heart, and so she kept thanking God with them.
I now find the same words in my heart. I am thankful for Big Mommy. I am thankful for her loving hands that cooked and cleaned and caught flies at the dinner table. I am thankful for her loving hands that shucked peas, canned tomatoes, and shelled pecans. I am thankful for her loving hands that crafted napkin caddies, knitted dishrags and afghans, and gave them away. I am thankful for her loving hands that trained up younger hands to love. I am thankful for her loving hands that helped in ways big and small to weave all the fibers comprising the bond of love we have now.
A smile still splashes involuntarily across my face when I remember Big Mommy’s prayers, but the smile no longer flows from amusement. It is a smile of fond gratitude. It is a smile of loving memory. And it is a smile of radiant joy at the thought that Big Mommy feels no pain in her shoulders when she raises her loving hands to praise the God who made her, sustained her, and now holds her close in His bond of love.
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