My grandmother’s pictures

Mike’s grandmother passed away this week. It makes us think and stand still. Thinking about life, now and in eternity.

I wrote about it at Breeze.be. Since it’s Dutch there I put the translation up here.

The picture is not of my grandmother, because I didn’t have one right here. My mom-in-law is a dear and let me use one of hers. Not as long ago as my grandmother’s pictures, but still vintage 😉 And yes, she was and is really beautiful. Inside AND outside 🙂

I like looking at my grandmother?s old pictures. She?s young and she wears a dress. On another picture you see her in her nurses uniform. I always get melancholy.

You can see that life is smiling at her. She?s got her whole life ahead of her. She didn?t know how it would go, but she was eager to get started. It was still so long, so much. It stretched in front of her like a lazy country road with twists and turns she couldn?t see around, but she knew the road went on beyond them.

I know how it went. She was a nurse first, and later on she got married. With her brother?s best friend. They met at the goodbye party he had before permanently moving to America. He never left. He stayed in the Netherlands for her.

I always think that is so romantic.

They got 4 children. The children got bigger. Daddy worked a lot, was often gone for the whole week and came home for the weekend. Then they?ld go out to eat. She kept her house spic and span, it was clean everywhere and all the time.

The children grew up. 2 got married. 1 moved to England and died of cancer later on. 1 was an adventure seeker. She?d go spelunking in Vietnam and Nepal and brought exotic gifts home for her nieces and nephews.

A lot more happened, but a life story can?t be told in a few words.

There was happiness and sadness. In it all she was mostly content. Then her husband died. That?s where we?re at now. She?s still here. She?s still part of life, part of our lives. But most of her life has been lived and we can?t get around that fact.

I?m the girl on the picture now. I?m still young, my life is mostly ahead of me. Are my grandchildren and great-grandchildren going to look at pictures of these days someday? Will they be quiet, realizing that it all seemed so long and so much, and that it?s all over, or almost over, now?

Will it make them look differently at their own lives?

I think about what I will cook tonight. About the house we are building. The fun things we will do this weekend. The things I want to do, attain, buy, have.

Some things pass my filter. Other things, I wonder about. Are they worth it? In the 80 or years I have, the 55 or 65 I still have left…is it worth putting so much time in this or in that? To spend so much money on it? To stress about it?

Having a lazy Sunday afternoon together? I think I?ll be glad I did that when I?m 80. Playing with the chilren, reading a book with them? That too, yes.

Those clothes I?m obsessing about, that I just need to have? Oh well. I have enough clothes. No need to stress about it. I can?t have everything, you know.

I think about heaven. When I?m about to go, will I be afraid? Will I be happy? Will I cling to life? We all do to some degree. That?s normal and right. We were given life, made so we could also enjoy it.

Still, I hope I?ll be glad when my time comes. That I can admit I?ve loved things here, have a hard time letting them go. But that I?ll be looking forward to much to heaven. That I?ll remember life here is only a piece of the story.

I think I will.

I?m looking forward to it already. An enormous choir, that I can be part of. God, and I?ll always be able to stay with Him.

Will there be green grass? Trees? Sunshine? Will there be books to read? Whatever it looks like, I want to be able to look back at my life, at what I pursued, reached, how I treated people and how I loved. That I can be content, looking at what?s coming.

Eternity, that concept I can?t fully understand yet