Leaving A Legacy – Part 2, Time and Attention

It’s been just over a year since I received the phone call.  It was my uncle, who had never ever called me before.  I remember him distinctly saying, “It’s not good. You need to come.”  And with that, I think I lost the ability to breathe.  I stood there, in my neighbor’s yard, not comprehending.  She had been in the hospital before, but she was the picture of health; she always came home saying, “Oh, it wasn’t really anything after all.”  Just a couple days earlier we had played sharks and minnows with my four children in the pool then had lunch together, she was doing well.  And yet that night, I stood at her bedside with my family as the doctors mumbled words that would take months to understand; oh, I, the wife of a doctor understood them as well as anyone in the room…yet those words took all the bits of my life and scattered them to the four corners.  And it would take months for me to pick them up and figure out how they all go together again.  Not sure I have them in place yet, but I have learned a lot.  One of the first lessons I learned on this journey of mourning was about legacy.  My grandmother left a legacy that was rich with love and devotion, full of grace.  Soon after her death I scribbled down the notes for this series on Leaving a Legacy, but it hasn’t been until now that I could find the words or the energy to write it all out.

For most of my adult life I have lived away from “home,” away from family, so coming home for holidays and vacations was always a special time.  It was also been a busy time.

When we found out our visiting dates, I would always call my parents and grandparents to say, “We’ll be home from this date to this date.”  Every time, without fail, my grandma would say, “Ok, hang on, let me go get a pencil.”  Then she would pencil those dates in on her calendar.  Every time I would tell her, “Well, while we’re home we have to do, this, and this, and this,” telling her about all of the errands and get-togethers we had to do while we were home.  She would always say, “It’s okay, whenever you come, we’ll be free!”  And they always were.

The thing is:  my grandparents weren’t the type of folk to just sit around waiting for anything.  They had more social engagements than anybody I’ve ever met.  Seriously.  They had friends whom they met for dinner frequently, church engagements, volunteering opportunities, meetings with their neighborhood group, breakfasts, a bridge club (that hadn’t played bridge for years), dinners with other friends, book clubs, art classes, and more!  Their schedule was always jam-packed!

So I knew that Grandma’s response was a careful reply; it was a calculated sacrifice.  She intended to be available to us, her family, and she did a fantastic job of it.

And more than just available, Grandma was present.  She was a magnificent hostess.  I still don’t know how she always did it, but she always managed that fine balance between making sure her guests were well-served and sitting and BEing with them during any visit.

Through my teen years days spent at her house were full of time talking – just that, talking.  She knew most of my friends by name (even if she hadn’t met them), and she would ask about how they were doing.  She knew about my classes and sometimes even my teachers.  During my college years, she knew about my classes and my plans.  We used to have great discussions about books I was reading or about educational theory; though she didn’t go to college with me, she involved herself in what I was doing and who I was becoming by listening to what I had to say.  That pattern continued until the day she died.

She also worked to do this with my children.  It was not unusual to find her sitting on the floor playing with my kids, teaching them to draw, coloring with them.  More than once I caught her doing somersaults with them in her sitting room!  When we brought Gus and Dimples home from Ethiopia, she made it her job to get to know them.  She studied them.  Before long she knew that they both have excellent large motor skills but that they probably didn’t have much exposure to writing/drawing/coloring.  She offered to teach Gus some drawing skills.  It was so helpful to me, the way that she helped by my eyes and ears to learn about these two children that were new family.  It also made me feel loved – she always communicated her love by making me feel important.

After Grandma died, Grandpa asked me to find something in one of her desk drawers.  I found what he was looking for…but I also found a collection of stories that Grandma had written about her life and some of her notes about family.  One of the things that was part of this collection of stories was a cheat sheet of sorts.  It was a list of family members and their likes and dislikes.  I giggled to myself as I read “no milk” next to my name and my husband’s name and sweet potatoes in the list of things that my children like.  It made me feel so special to me that she was willing to get to know us, to spend time with us, to study us all so that she could love us better.

It has also been a great challenge to me, as I hurry through these busy homeschooling-mom-of-four-busy-kids days.  “Be intentional,” I tell myself.  “Get to know them.  Know their likes, know their dislikes.  Ask them about their friends.  Be available when they need you to be.”  And it is good, good to be reminded that love isn’t just in the ooey-gooey but also in the purposeful getting-to-know someone and the “I’ll be there when you need me.”

 

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