Burying My Grandmother

Today we buried my grandmother's ashes. She died in November of last year but finally this week we all made the trek north to her hometown and the place where her parents, husband and brother are buried.

The graveyard was so much more packed with graves than I remember it being as a child. We would go to the graveyard often after Mass - to clean things up or to visit. I didn't really understand why as a kid but it seemed important to Grandma, so we did it. I never questioned it.

Now, as a widow, I understand. The need to visit. To make sure that our loved ones are being cared for, even after they are gone.

Grandma will be buried with her husband. There's a plot designated for her on the other side of her parents, but she is cremated and there's enough room for her with Grandpa. It seems only right. They were married for 56 years after all. Though he's been gone since April of 2006, they still seem to be a pair and she talked about him often.

It's been odd grieving Grandma this year with the grief of G so fresh. Such different deaths. G's one we would consider to be tragic - to die so young, with a young wife and child and so much life left to live. Grandma lived to be 98. She buried her parents and her brother. Her husband, her sisters-in-law, her friends. She raised her daughters, knew her grandkids and even got to meet and know 9 great-grandchildren. She lived through wars and tragedies and loss and the great depression. She saw the world change so much. Kept hope and kept living throughout nearly a century of joys and pains.

And yet, death. Death is not what we were made for. Death - at any age - is a severing of relationship. A tearing apart of something that shouldn't be torn. Death is the things we live our lives fighting against. We take medications, supplements. We exercise and do brain puzzles. We wear seat belts and practice safety plans and learn to put on an oxygen mask in case a plane crashes with us in it.

There is always a threat - a constant need for diligence to prevent the one thing that will happen to us all - death. At 35 like G or at 98 like Grandma, it always seems to come too soon. That or the dying process - the diminishing of our bodies and our minds - makes it seem to come too late. But only to the believer in Jesus. Only to the one who has hope beyond this life. Because if we do, death is a doorway to eternal life - and if we don't - the worst things in life cannot compare to the terror ahead of us.

No, death isn't how its supposed to be. Yes, it's been defeated in Jesus. Yes, we now have hope. But no, it was never meant to be like this.