This week marks ten years since my grandmother went to be with Jesus. Ten years since I picked up the phone to share my day with her, ten years since she soothed my baby to sleep, ten years since we sat down for Sunday dinner at that antique dining table overflowing with her famous Southern cooking. It’s been ten years since I sang “Because He Lives” to her as she took her last breath.
There’s not a day that passes that I don’t see her legacy lived out in every area of my life. I am who I am today because of who she was to me.
She was my greatest encourager, my dearest friend and confidant, and a steadfast champion for Jesus and the calling He’d placed upon my life. When I was eleven, she suffered a cerebral brain aneurysm, followed by two strokes. All seven of her children flew in to say their goodbyes and gathered in a windowless hospital waiting room to beg God for a miracle. And He gave it. She not only survived but lived out the next fifteen years as a walking, talking testimony of the power of prayer and a faith that’s bold enough to move mountains.
When she was well and I was old enough to understand, I promised her that we would write her story together someday. From the depths of the Great Depression to the peaks of miraculous healing and every rugged, well-worn route in between — I told her I’d be there to put words to her memories and relay her legacy, line by line.
Because her legacy became my mother’s legacy and my mother’s mine. Our stories are inextricably woven together like a timeworn tapestry, one thread bleeding and blending into the next. I am cut from the cloth of strong matriarchs, and the strands of their stories are the pattern by which I raise my own girls to become women who leave bold legacies in their wake.
When my grandma got diagnosed with brain cancer many years later, I sat in her hospital room and handed her a voice recorder, telling her to speak her life into it and that I’d take it from there.
She met Jesus less than a month later and that tiny tape still lies silent in a wooden box in my closet. But her stories, her memories, her legacy will never be silent. And one day, I will pen them just as I promised.
Because her story is my mother’s story and my mother’s story mine. And mine, the story of my children. And on and on this legacy goes and grows, one generation to the next, taking what’s been and building upon it for what will be.
Until I write her story—our story—here’s a poem I wrote a few years ago that encapsulates a bit of it. It was recently published in “Let There Be Art” by Rachel Marie Kang.1
Where Love Takes Root and Grows
The smell of antiquities and homemade patisserie hovers in the air,
I’m welcomed in by age-worn arms and hands so thin and fair.
Floured jewels and rolling pins, aprons pressed and messed again.
Where love is found in gathering ‘round tables filled and fit for kings.
Southern drawls and lemonade, Summer warmth, and hymnal sings.
When life was slow and time was free, on that creaky, green-striped swing.
We watch the clouds move back and forth; we name them each their own.
We tie together flower crowns o’er dripping ice cream cones.
And as the night begins to fall, we catch lightning in a jar.
Those age-worn arms reach high and count the ever-twinkling stars.
The whispers and the things we’ve shared I tuck away and carry
Inside of me for all life’s days, and pull out when I am weary.
A quiet drifts upon us now, it’s time for you to go.
You said I was your special girl and that’s all I’d need to know.
And somewhere between those summer moons and growing up it seems
that life moved on without consent and left behind these little things.
I’m older now and made from you, like clay that’s formed and shaped.
The glue that bonded childhood dreams and left legacies in wake.
You hold my babes, all five of them; you shush them each to sleep.
The one you rocked in that small room.
And the ones you’d never meet.
I see you in my oldest’s strength, her strong-willed grit and fire.
I hear you in my boys’ sweet laughs and find you in their eyes.
Our middle girl, you’d love her so, she bears more than your name
With endless words and care for all she’s more like you each day.
I feel you in the seasons now,
I see you in my home,
Where life is lived in in-betweens and love takes root and grows.
Thank you for reading this tiny tribute to the woman who was a giant presence in my life. Here’s a song to accompany it. May it spark gratitude for someone in your life, too. If you’re up for it, I’d love to hear about a soul that’s made a lasting impact on you and your legacy.
“Let There Be Art” by Rachel Marie Kang is on super sale on Amazon right now and you should definitely buy it and be inspired to see the thread of creativity in your everyday life, friend!