Past, Future, and Grief

I'm nervous about visiting my great Aunt Lote when I return home. I haven't seen her since the beginning of last summer, before I went to Denver. In that conversation, she must have asked me about my plans for the summer a half-dozen times. When I told her that I was taking a ten-week internship in Colorado, her eyes lit up with surprise as she said, "Really? What will you be doing? That's great..." each and every time. For her birthday over the summer, I wrote her a letter, but I did so hesitantly, fearful that her feelings would be hurt because she would think that I neglected to tell her I was even going to Denver. I grieve the loss of my aunt's memory. Probably, from now on, I will no longer grow in her mind. I, for the rest of her life, will be a teacher and a seminary student. I will never be a seminary graduate, I will never live anywhere besides St. Louis, I will never be in my thirties, I will never be married.

I'm nervous about visiting my Grandma when I return home for the holidays. She's on oxygen now. I've never seen her on oxygen. She becoming less mobile all of the time. She can't reach up very high anymore. She walks very slowly with her cane. It wasn't too long ago that she was moving all over the house, up and down the stairs, carrying laundry, setting the table, vacuuming. She was a RN at a nursing home, giving patients their meds, helping dress and undress them, pushing that cart. Now, she gets so out of breath walking from one room to the other that she has to set and rest once she's reached her destination. I miss the Grandma that I grew up with. I miss the Grandma that I could play with, cook with, and depend on. I miss the Grandma that took care of me.

It's not that I'm unwilling to take care of my grandma and my aunt. I love them. They have given so much to me, I would sacrifice anything to give back to them. But, I am saddened by the change. In a society that worships youth at the expense of the wisdom that comes with age, I'm hesitant to say anything negative about aging, for I think we should learn to embrace the experience that comes with years, not resent it. Also, there are so many ways in which we as a society demoralize older people: we force them into retirement instead of valuing their wisdom, we complain about their driving, we talk to them like little children when visiting them in the nursing homes, we don't seek their advice. However, while I exhort myself and everyone else to seek the wisdom of older people, and, even when their minds cannot recall the knowledge they gained in their younger years, to still to honor them, I am convinced that the deterioration of the mind and the body is not the way God intended it to be.

So, I ache as I think about what used to be compared with what is now. I ache as I think of Grandma sitting on the sidelines watching her children and grandchildren zip back and forth. I ache as I think that Aunt Lote will not even remember the visits I make over the holidays. But it is comforting to know that I ache, not only because things are not what they once were, but also because things are not presently the way they will be in the future.

There will be a day when suffering will end, when our bodies will not constrained to gradual deterioration and death. There will be a day when all of the pain and aching that come along with a world where death exists will be gone. God has redeemed this place. He's going to make it new. Death is going to be shown the way out. The way things are supposed to be will someday be. And nothing will be able to destroy it.