Your Life Story Part 5
October 29, 2024
Your Life Story Part 5
Until I lost her when she was ninety-two, I regularly sat with my grandmother and asked questions about her life. She was born in 1892, so she had a wonderful perspective on life. She was raised in a farm family in Linn Crossing, Alabama. Bernice graduated from what is now the University of Montevallo. Her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a farmer and a county judge. She told me many things I would never have known about farm life during that part of history, like running down chickens, ringing their necks, and plucking them for Sunday dinner. She spoke of playing in the cornfields and learning from her mama how to cook her wonderful biscuits, cakes, and pies… yum.
As a child, I would sit in her lap. I can still recall her pleasant scent that came from the big power puff she patted her body with every morning. Grandmother loved to interact and play. She would pull up the skin on the back of my hand, and it would immediately plump back to shape when she released it. Then she would do the same with the back of her hand, but when she released the pinch of skin, it did not plump back but remained in a ridge. Then she would tell me the lesson I was to learn. She said, “One day, you will be able to make the flesh stand up on your hand and it will stand up just like mine. When this happens, you will know that you are older and wiser. I did not believe it.
My college was in Birmingham, where she lived, so I saw Grandmother often. One Sunday afternoon, while visiting, on TV, there were videos of astronauts walking on the moon… she could not believe her eyes. She said, “I have seen us go from horses and buggies to cars to airplanes, and now this!” She still couldn’t believe how the telephone worked. Grandmother would wax seriously at times. She told me several times that she got scared when she contemplated the universe. She said, “It’s so vast that when I get to what I think is the end, then there is more on the other side, and that happens again and again. I cannot comprehend infinity, but we all will one day.”
Her life story spanned many eras, so it was amazing. I have a picture of her as a young maiden around twenty. Though she was always ‘Grandmother’ to me, and I considered her to be “old,” in truth she was once a young lady. As this picture reveals, she was not always an older wiser one with white hair and wrinkles, the wise one.
These days, when someone holds a door open for me and calls me sir, I am still surprised. I think, “Why are you holding the door for me … that’s for old people, and why are you calling me sir? Don’t you know I am one of you, not them?” And when a young lady waiting on me at a store, calls me “sweetheart,” … well, that’s a shocker. A few short years ago, she would never have called me that. Then comes the realization that I am older than them, and they see me as I saw older people when I was their age.
Our life stories are a complete life, not only who we are today. Inside us, we are a baby, young child, teenager, young adult, and much more. Those of us in the second half of life, span many eras of the human story. Our many stages of life and the unfolding history in which we live give us rich perspectives we didn’t have near the beginning of our lives.
Nowadays, if I pinch the skin on the back of my hand, it doesn’t plump right back, which always reminds me of the precious soul who taught me so much about soul-making. I believe her that one day I will be able to comprehend infinity, just as she does now.
Spiritual practice: Think of someone who helped bring you into being. Gently picture them in your mind’s eye. Can you sense their touch, fragrance, voice, laugh, or words? How did they affirm your soul? Now, gently close your eyes and be with them once more … What was it like?
Self-inquiry: What makes you want to affirm your age? What makes you deny it?
Dear God, Thank you for all the tender moments that have made my soul. Amen
