I’m typing this the week of the birthdate of my Grandmomma Inez, who passed away in the ’80s (1989) and in her ’80s (88). She was only 4-10 but all by herself (not counting God), she raised four boys and one girl; the girl was gratefully and gracefully in the middle, divinely placed to help raise the two younger guys, who eventually became my dad and “the baby,” my Uncle Artie.
Since grandmomma passed away — she lived two weeks after a summertime stroke — the family has had a reunion each year around her birthday in early July. The only year we were shut out was 2020 (and yes, we wish we could forget that too). I’m missing the one coming up this weekend, back in Carolina where most all of the riff-raff I am related to hang out, work honestly, cheat on their golf scores, and punch each other in the arm.
I will miss the “golf tournament,” the tea drinking, the storytelling, the remembering. Sadly, we have lost some of the irreplaceable crew who were there for the first reunion. So now, when we talk about grandmomma, we talk about them too.
We listen to the same old stories — always a treat — and some new ones. You know how it goes: my family’s stories, you wouldn’t “get” and I wouldn’t understand yours, but somehow, we are all tied together and they’d make some kind of sense.
It’d be fun to be a fly on the potato salad at your family reunion this summer, just to listen in. “Oh yeah,” I’d think to myself. “That story reminds me of my crazy family…”
Sometimes people say a deceased loved one is “looking down on you from heaven and smiling” after you’ve done something they’d be proud of, and maybe that’s true but it’s probably not. I’m not sure how that precisely works but if they could see the good stuff, they’d see you do not-so-good stuff too and that might make them sad and that wouldn’t be heaven.
But … if you believe Paul in his letter to the church at Thessalonica — (“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope…)— andif you believe Jesus, who says in John’s Gospel that he’s going to prepare a place that we can be with him, and if you believe Revelation 21 and the promise of a redeemed world and a defeated Satan, then how reassuring it is to know that you will see your God-loving grandmother again, or whoever it is you miss terribly. No more tears and worries. A family reunion forever, one where no one’s feelings are hurt, one where the chicken is fried just right and there are no flies and the temperature is less than 95, even in ‘heavenly’ July.
Inez stayed close to her Bible and to the Lord, and everyone in her little town new it, and she walked to church until she couldn’t anymore and she loved fiercely and protected her own and doled out the righteous punishment when it was needed. She was a pistol, as divine a judge as you can be and still be human.
It’ll be a glorious day to see her again, and so many others. It’ll be … it’ll be heaven.
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu