Eulogy to the Living

Nearly two and a half years ago, my maternal grandmother passed away. I cannot say much about the woman who raised my mother except to say that she liked baked potatoes, animals, preaching on Sunday, and candy from a jar on her living room table. I could also mention that she never lost the spark she carried in her fiery disposition; I think she carried it from the cradle to the grave. She was a beautiful woman, loving in her later days, and someone whom I am blessed to have known. Lastly, I would have to say that my Momma cared for her with tender attention until the day that she died and; Momma loved her unconditionally. I wrote her eulogy the morning of her funeral, and the words spilled out of me like a passionate tumult of feelings and sorrow for my mother's loss. I remember getting up in front of the crowd of people that gathered to show their respects with shaky knees and a determination to make my mother proud. I looked into the eyes of family, my mother's extended family and my father's family as well. My paternal grandparents sat near the back and showed their support in the way that strong families do best, quietly and humbly. After I finished speaking, I folded up the few pages I wrote and made my way quickly to my seat. I remember using the words, "I reckon so" in the words I spoke about my grandmother and I remember that my description fell flat and did her no justice. And, yet, I remember leaving the church and walking with my grandfather from my Daddy's side, Papa, and he asked if I would write his eulogy when the time came. I figure he was just saying something to be nice, because that is what grandfathers do. But, for years now, I have thought that maybe the words I would want to share would be better put to use in the present. Because, after all, love is best when shared. So, consider this a eulogy to the living...



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He grew up in a land enchanted by brown mountain lights and dogs that towered over him in his youth and guided him on hunting trips when he was older. He romanticized his childhood in bedtime stories whispered from a rocking chair in the guest bedroom where my brother and I slept many nights; and, I would give my soul just to hear one more story in that room with large windows and small, twin beds. I can see myself as a child, sitting up in bed and begging, "Papa, just one more story." There was something about the way he talked and his stories that left me yearning for more, because in his stories he was young and wild and something like me. His momma married her school teacher and the family house sat on a hill next to a root cellar at the base of a mountain with a name I can hardly pronounce. Papa came from a small, town with running rivers and white, freezing snow and a school house down the road. His father was a mail carrier and his mother birthed babies with the help of a midwife way up in the mountains. And, somehow, I think that maybe in my mind, the stories became folk lore and he became the hero; because even now, when I think of him, he is larger than life, stronger than Popeye, and so full of goodness that it shines in his eyes.

When I was a child, I learned many valuable lessons from the hero from my bedtime stories. He taught me to chase down trains and to hunt icicles in the wintertime. He taught me about mosquitoes, and birds, and horses. And, somehow, patiently, he taught me about love, without the use of words and only inadvertently through actions that must have just come naturally. The pastures around his home were a playground where I was content to play for hours on end, but I was never happier than when he took me up and let me sit on his broad lap on the seat of his blue tractor and we would drive around those same fields; of course, the view was better on his knees and I remember smiling until my cheeks hurt on those long, sun-streaked summer afternoons. To the world, I was just a child that asked too many questions and begged for attention; but to the man with eyes that shined, I was something special and he spent hours on end listening to me talk and acting as my M.C. in impromptu concert performances I gave nearly hourly for years.

Start of Something New

The plane landed in a foreign land. Seven hours later, we are lying quietly in the clean, quaint room of a cheap hotel in a town with a name I have almost forgotten. The Puerto Rican nightlife is picking up around the little city and our hotel, a converted monastery, stands adjacent to a chapel with tall walls that echo techno music and accents that I do not quite comprehend. My daughter's breathing is deep and her mouth is open, almost smiling as she sleeps. Her tiny chest rises and falls, she is unaware of the noises and excitement that envelope our small world that night. My husband beside me is also lost in the world of dreams. When he sleeps, he looks so much like our daughter that it strikes me as odd. By day, he is tough and strong and she has a baby face and wide eyes; at night, they are angels with just a few years between them.

I lay pondering the room, looking at the stained glass window high up in the ceiling of our room. The deep red, blue and green panels outline a cross. The room where my family now sleeps once housed monks before it was converted into a room for tourists, travelers, and those looking for something other than home. I am struck by the quiet of the room and the realization that perhaps, a monk breathed his last breath in this room a hundred years before. I think of his tired eyes and the wrinkles that betray his age, the peace in his heart, and the callouses on his knobby knees from a life spent kneeling before an Eternal God. I think of a different monk who had just answered the calling of his Lord, and who undoubtedly spent sleepless hours looking at the same stained glass I am now admiring, asking himself if he had made the right decision when he abandoned all he knew and followed the cross. I imagine that many men before me longed for the touch of a woman, of companionship; and yet, I take the man beside me for granted. I think about the prayers that were prayed below the little stained glass window, a beacon of light in the darkness. I imagine poignant words in a native tongue, where Dios is Lord and life is vida. I envision the quiet of the monastery after dark and the battles that must have waged in the souls of the inhabitants: the line between faith and disbelief is undoubtedly thin to some when the lights are out and solitude entices their souls. Sleep finally comes, late, after I have exhausted my imagination and taken up the practice of the men who slept here before me: I pray to their God, in a different language and in a different time; yet, I know He hears me just the same.