Sonya Wilson's Blog

I’m not sappy.  But when my grandma, who in our estimation has been on her deathbed several times, opens her eyes, looks at me with that bright smile and tells me she loves me, my eyes spring a leak, and I am immediately in danger of turning into a weepy mess.  What’s that all about?

I’m not sad.  It’s the kind of cry that just hits you and you can’t help it, when your love for someone is all right there, in your face, and you can’t rationalize it away or hide it in a flurry of activity, but your raw, real, almost tangible affection built up over time is staring at you, demanding acknowledgement–and any tug or suggestion that that person is not always going to be there with you sends this bolt straight up your throat and through your head and you have nothing else to do but sit there and feel it as the tears just flow down and there’s no stopping them.

But it’s this kind of love that makes you feel alive.  And it shows that somewhere within you is the capacity to love deeply and even fiercely.  And if the human love is merely a shadow of the divine love, what kind of love could that be?  At the end of a long and fruitful life, Grandma is praying, over and over, short phrases, “And we shall be found…In love and humility…And we shall be found in You, O Lord.  We love You, Lord.  Let us be Thine.  Our love is Your love.  Our love is Your love.”

This 101-year-old lady whose physical body has gradually succumbed to the ravages of time, whose words are uttered weakly and far from eloquently, who needs help to eat, who the world has no use for anymore–how can I say this without sounding trite?–still enriches my life, but I can’t say exactly how.  All I know is that I want to be with her, to smooth down her hair, to smile at her and kiss her on the forehead, to see her little wave, hear her voice, to see the twinkle and the love in her eyes as she brightly smiles back.  I really cannot explain it.

But I have a hunch it might have something to do with this.

Tonight we had a conversation about love.  It was simple and it consisted of about ten words repeated over and over, but as she gave me those words, looking straight into my eyes, what was conveyed was much richer than any erudite discussion.  My verbal responses were even shorter, but it seemed to be one of the most meaningful conversations I’ve ever had with her–spirit & soul to spirit & soul–one that I will hopefully remember for a long time.

Yes, He loves us–and I love you too, Grandma.

This entry was posted on October 13, 2013 at 4:58 am and is filed under Ramblings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.