My Grandma Passed Away

She was the last of my grandparents, in her mid-nineties, and it's been awhile since she really "lived". My dad and his sister both have struggled with when the right time to let her go has been. God and Grandma helped with that decision, thankfully. Today, I'm heading to Asheville, NC for the funeral, which is tomorrow. I'm not sure what exactly I'm feeling, if anything, except that I want to be with my dad (and mom), his brother, and sister to share in their grief. And really that's more because that's how I'd want my kids to be for me rather than for any personal benevolence. Sometimes, I worry about my personhood. Well, many times.

As opposed to my mother's parents, I wasn't that close with my Dad's. They just weren't in our lives as much. Nonetheless, both Grandma and Papa were wonderful people, albeit a little quirky, from what I know, and for the times I saw them, they were good grandparents to me and, as Christians and decent human beings, they helped a lot of people. I used to love going out on Papa's fishing boat when we went down to Miami, and Grandma would cook up the perch we caught and make it taste like fried shrimp. I used to climb in their fig tree and stuff myself. They had a mini-farm and barn, and when I was a baby, they bought Gingerbread, a Shetland Pony, for me. I never got to see the pony much, although I rode him and their other horse when I was down there. They had lots of chickens as well - used to collect the eggs when I was down there... and cats and two or three poodles. Grandma made the best key lime pie, too. And then, I remember she told me a couple stories I almost had trouble believing. One was about her and Papa talking to and encouraging Billy Graham when he was young and had thoughts of abandoning preaching. I wonder if that really happened?

Whatever is in me, though, I just don't feel that much. I'd like to feel more, because I think that'd be more human. She was my grandmother. She loved my dad. She loved me. While I'd like to think it's grief, I'm fairly sure it's rather that my soul's just a little too numb, I don't love enough, and really, my heart's a little too hard.

Lord, soften it.