My Grandfather and I were really close. I was actually very close to both my grandparents but my grandmother died long before my grandfather did. We called him Grandpa and we were bonded together with love and support that was unmatched in any other aspect of my life. When I knew not many other people would really care about something like I did, I could always call him and he would “ooh” and “ahh” and gush over whatever it was, making me feel like a princess. I called him religiously and depended on him deeply for emotional and mental support.
Grandpa always struggled with health issues and heart problems. And in October 2008, his body simply could not take it anymore. He went in the hospital with heart problems and I stayed with my family and by his side for a good part of 3 weeks in the ICU.
This was by far, the most difficult and trying time of my life…and is still hard to talk about.
As I mentioned before, I was equally as close to my Grandmother, Memommy, but the conditions of her passing were by far different. Her death was sudden and I was very young and sheltered from most of the details until I was older.
But with Grandpa, there was no sheltering. It was all out for my knowledge as I watched his health deteriorate day after day after day. I was blessed to have a boss at the time who was compassionate and sympathetic and who allowed me to stay at the hospital as much as I needed without any ramifications at my job.
So after 2-3 weeks of this, and my world being turned upside down, the day came when I had to say Good-bye …hardest day of my life. Grandpa and I emailed each other frequently and I still have several of his letters in my inbox with a faint hope, from time to time, that he might respond.
At the funeral, my best friend & husband, Tim, did me the great honor of reading one of those emails correspondences for me. Grandpa and I had been talking about cycles of life and how there is a time to bloom and a time to be without.
As we were exiting the funeral, I noticed a large plant in the corner of the vestibule that was addressed to me from Ingram (my work). I have always been blessed with wonderful people to work with who are like my family. And this gesture made my heart melt. It was a huge peace lily with a bow. I was touched.
I took the plant home and have been nurturing it ever since. It’s been at my office, at my mom’s house during my maternity leave, at my house, and back to my office. I call it my “Grandpa plant” and it means a great deal to me. It reminds me of him and makes me smile. I didn’t even know it could bloom until a white thing sprouted from it last year out of nowhere. It only did it once and then died away.
Well, this week it bloomed for the second time. And When I look its single blossom, I feel like it’s my Grandpa giving me encouragement from heaven, even for a brief amount of time. Something subconsciously inside of me feels like if I can keep this plant alive, if I can make it bloom (even just once a year), then the full extent of his absence will never sink in. And I hope it never does.
But as we once discussed in our emails, these are just the cycles of life. There is a time to bloom and a time to be without….to let go.
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On July 26, 2005, I sent Grandpa the following short story that I had written.
Grandpa,
I noticed yesterday that all the pink blooms on my plant had withered and died. I keep it in my Walmart pot on the windowsill in my living room as a sign of life. And I watch it go through stages of full beautiful flowers to just green stems as it flows through the phases of its own life.
When in bloom, it’s gorgeous and I can’t help but be proud of the fact that I was able to keep it alive thus far, long enough to see all of its potential beauty. However, these stages never last and it’s not long before time grabs it and withers its flowers and forces it back into the meek green stemmed plant it once was.
I can’t help but feel for the tiny flower and how difficult it must be to overcome such obstacles to bloom. For I , myself have witnessed such phases in my own life and if it is this difficult for me as a person to deal with the phases we must endure, then I can’t help but pity my plants and its struggle.
For life takes us on curves, bumps, swerves and hairpin turns on our road. But then it also guides us through rolling hills, beautiful landscapes, and straight and narrow paths as well. And the only thing that really keeps me going is knowing that, like my little plant blooms and withers only to bloom again, so must I go through stages of blooms and withering times. I find comfort in knowing that God is watching me, caring for me, and waiting for me, never-endingly, for the stages in my life to run their courses, as I do for my little plant.
It is a shame, really, that we all can’t simply stay in bloom year around. However, if we did not go through those withering times, how then are we fully to appreciate the blooming ones? Maybe it is the withering stages of life that give the blooming ones their beauty.
Thus, I turn my eyes towards those that matter most to me, in my life. For I know that as life seems to be withering around me now, it is really only showing me how beautiful it once was and will be again, with time.
Love, Jessica
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The importance of this story to me lays not in what I wrote but in Grandpa’s response tome. Here is what he wrote back, in his own words:
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Dear Jessica,
Thank you for your sweet letter about the flower in your window. It carried a powerful message and yet a bittersweet reminder of life, out faith and what we are inside.
Last week I heard a crash in the kitchen. Of course, I knew something had fallen and broken. I went to investigate the accident and low and behold, it was the plate we had hanging on the kitchen wall.
We had brought it from Grannie’s probably twenty years ago and it was a gift to me. Miss Josie, Granny’s friend has won it at the county fair probably 50 or 60 years ago. It has been at the kitchen table on the farm for as long as I could remember. It was a platter with three Dutch girls washing clothes; you could not see their faces as they were Little Dutch Girls on the Clabber Girl baking soda cans.
I bent over and picked up the broken pieces and thought maybe I could glue them back together and then we could hang it on the wall again as if nothing had ever happened. Then I noticed the nail, no bigger than a straight pin and I got mad. Someone was to blame and I wanted to let them know. I knew Cathy placed the nail in the wall and it was simply too small but then I realized that Cathy did not do this to me, it just happened.
I tried to glue it back together but the pieces just would never match up again.
I must go on without the plate and understand that it is upstairs, glued together but never again to be perfect. But I still have it and I still love it, imperfect as it is. It was not my fault or Cathy’s fault it broke, that is just the way life is programmed.
Love, Grandpa
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This email has given me quite a bit of comfort recently and I am still amazed how much it applies today though it was written 3 years ago. It’s like he is speaking to me now. We can try to glue things back together and act like nothing ever happened, but the pieces will never match up again. We must go without, all the while still having and still loving these imperfect things. Because, as Grandpa said, that is just the way life is programmed, no one is to blame.
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