Long Way Home

This weekend we finally did it. We went for the "big" road trip down to the country to see my grandfather's house. My Grampie passed away 6 months ago, and I haven't set foot in his house for several years. He and I had what I can only call a complex relationship. I was his only granddaughter, and despite the fact that he had two daughters of his own he often seemed unsure as to how to deal with me. My Grammie would take me to the kitchen and bake with me for hours, finding little tasks for me to "help". I find myself doing the same with my kids these days. While I was in their old home I found the toddler sized apron I used to wear while I helped her still tied up in the same spot in her kitchen where I left it when I outgrew 20 years ago. Through all my turbulent times with the family, I have a core of sweet memories with my Grammie I can turn to.

My Grampie and I, on the other hand, had a more complex relationship. I remember as a child I wanted so badly to be his shadow. I tried rabbit trapping (horrifying memory here involving a not quite dead rabbit being skinned. We had it for supper that night. Ew.), fishing (my fish were often thrown back, in retrospect probably because he did a lot of catch and release), woodworking (this turned into me splitting wood unattended for their fire place at the age of... 9???) and water sports on the lake (I was just lousy at this. Hands down spazz). I felt so often that I wasn't of much interest to him. My brothers and cousins were more exciting, interesting, and at the very least far less squeamish about all his favourite activities. They had no problem baiting their own hook, understood sports, and had no qualms with hunting and trapping.

As the years went on and we didn't visit their house as often, my memories turn to he and my Grammie dropping by our house when they came to town, usually with small gifts and some sweets. I would do my best to be polite, but would do my best to flee the scene. After my Grammie passed away it was even worse. He would come to town with his new wife, a very sweet lady, and want to talk to me for as long as he could grab my attention. Part of me felt guilty. I knew I should treasure my time with him. I'd already lost 3 three grandparents, never having time to really ask all the questions and hear all the stories I know they had to tell. The other part of me saw him as a sort of anachronism. There he was, exactly the same as I remembered him as a kid (he aged very well), but not in his familiar setting. He hadn't changed, but I had changed immensely. We were worlds apart.

On the long drive (with 4 kids, ninety minutes in a confined space is a long time) to the old family home, I sat in the passenger seat trying to cobble together my memories to make some sense of the man. At his funeral, droves of people had sang, cried and laughed, soaking in their memories of this man. He was a prankster, a father figure, a dedicated volunteer in his community, and the life of any party. Stories of his various mishaps and stunts made the rounds, both during the eulogy and around the over-full tables at the reception. Family and friends co-mingled, impossible to distinguish at his funeral just as they had been in his life. His funeral had been a glimpse at the man I wanted to know, but had found unreachable. The mistakes he'd made with me, and other members of my family, clouded my desire to take the steps to peel away his rough exterior to find this diamond of a man everyone else saw.

As we came in sight of the old house I'd spent every summer at for over a dozen years, the backdrop of so many memories, I felt a lump in my throat when I realised Grammie wasn't spying us from the kitchen, yelling for Grampie to come help us bring in our bags. We weren't coming to stay, we were coming to take one last look. As we walked through their oddly empty house, littered with the legacy of their lives, I stumbled over memories and possibilities. Here were the measuring cups my Grammie used to let me fill for our little baking projects. There was Grampie's collection of tools old and new, still as he left them the last time he'd been healthy enough to go in his shop. As we glanced through the old upstairs bedrooms, we found a stack of letters, tied together with a faded yellow bow. After noting that they were addressed to my Grammie (by her maiden name), I absently tucked them in our bag, along with my old childhood apron and a few oddments we collected from around the house.

When we got home and got the kids to bed, exhausted from their long drive and overfull of snacks provided by my Mum, their Grammie, I settled down to take a look at the thick stack of faded letters, mostly written on White Rose Oil Company stationary. Glancing through it became clear very quickly these were the love letters my Grampie wrote to my Grammie over 60 years ago, before they were married. They were living in different towns because of his work, and would get together every weekend. These letters, from about a 6 month period, were written once and sometimes twice a day. I feel a little guilty reading them, but then I can't resist. He wrote exactly the same way he talked, with all the funny little tics and expressions I can hear slipping off his tongue in his old, familiar voice. In these letters I hear the man, while reading the words of his love, devotion, and humour mixed together seamlessly. Old stories I would have loved to hear, I get to read in his familiar style.

When I thought I no longer had time, I at last have found him. Here in this carefully saved stack of letters I am reading the soul of the man. His hopes for the future, his devotion to the woman he loved until death parted them (and beyond), all mixed in with the kind of humourous banalities he was know to ramble on about in his later life. For example, more than one mentions getting his pants hemmed or his hair cut (less of a concern as he got older and swiftly lost all his hair).  Somehow, after all these years of struggling to find a sweet memory to focus on, I have in my hands a way to keep the best parts of him, the parts I loved and mourned at his funeral. Any time that I miss him, I can take out one of his letters and hear his voice in my mind, wooing his sweetheart and dreaming of a life well lived.

There's Something About Mary

Today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. It's our archdiocesan feast and a favourite of mine. I love the idea of Jesus up in Heaven still having His Mama on His mind. Rather than throwing a victory party He's making a throne for her. I think as we get older and become parents ourselves we look back and feel this way about our Moms. We start to see all of her sacrifices, quiet love and understand all the worry we've caused her through the years.

I feel an even greater connection to Mary now that I'm a mother too. After years of seeing her just as the young girl of the Nativity story, I can't help but wonder about those untold years of late night feeds, toddler years and so on. A friend of mine, quite rightly, was talking about how Jesus must have been as a child. He's God, so I had always thought He'd be preaching practically from the manger. But that doesn't make sense because He was always wholly human. My lovely friend said so insightfully that Jesus would be perfectly human for each age. He would have experienced teething same as my kids, learned how to walk, hit all those milestones. There would be something special about Him, but He would still have to learn and explore just like any child. I don't imagine Mary got to stoically sit by while Jesus was doing all his growing. I bet she was chasing Him as He played, wiping up the food He threw on the floor and being just as tired as I am most days.

I suppose that's why, now that I'm a mother, I find Our Lady of Sorrows so appealing. Here is a mother, not so unlike me. She's given birth and spent over 30 years doing what all mothers do: Loving, worrying, and praying for her Son. The difference is she had the sad blessing of knowing that her Son, her precious baby, was meant to die for the salvation of all. Most of us live with the niggling fear that something might happen to our children, but she knew. That's why when I read a verse about how Mary watched and remembered the things her Son did I can understand. When my kids are sick I watch their every move and try to soak in every detail. Imagine how sorrowful life would be if you knew something incomprehensibly tragic was going to happen to your precious child because of others (oh happy fault that won for us so great a Saviour!). I remember the day I spent in the hospital with my son, crouched over his weak body as they conducted tests to see if he is diabetic. Through no fault of his own my baby was pale and sickly with tubes in his arm as he patiently endured all their tests. In that moment my 2 year old son and I clutched his rosary like a life preserver. I don't think I prayed that old comforting prayer. My thoughts were a jumble of pleas and devotion, all while I tried to put on a brave face. I sat there watching him, trying to imprint every detail of his beautifully trusting face on my brain as he turned pale. I couldn't cry the tears threatening to explode out of me. Because that's what we parents do. We put on a brave face so our children aren't afraid even when the monsters in the closet are real. Luckily everything turned out and for now my boy is fine. For all those mothers of children with chronic or terminal illness I sit in awe of your strength and endless well of love.

Knowing what she knew, Mary must have spent every day since Simeon prophesied to her the death of her son masking her pierced heart with a calm exterior characteristic of the grace God had poured to overflowing on her. With her perfect Son to care for she was the perfect mother. She experienced in a unique but universal way the joys and sorrows of motherhood. She experienced the brutal death of her only child, watched it at every step and felt it in the depths of her heart and soul as only a parent can. Today we celebrate the great act of love shown to her by her Son. When her earthly mission was done and she was ready, God lifted her up body and soul, sparing her the pain of her own death. This was God's blessing to her and to us. Now in Heaven Mary continues in her position of Mother, but now Mother of All. She still watches her children with sorrow in all our sufferings as she pleads on our behalf to her Son.

How lucky we are as mothers to have so great an example and advocate!