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Loose Ends

As many of you in our church family know, my family is currently processing the loss of my "Granny," JoAnn McAuley, who died due to complications of COVID-19, as well as significant chronic health problems, at the age of 80.  For many years, she suffered from chronic physical pain.  Those of us who knew her and loved her are heartbroken, but content in our spirits because we know she is no longer suffering.  We have felt the warmth and support of our church family in this time of grief and that has made all the difference.  So, on behalf of my family, I'd first like to express our thanks and love to all of you.

I am JoAnn's granddaughter, but I also worked as her part-time caretaker.  I did my best to return the love she'd given me as a child (we could also just call this "oldest child syndrome").  I feel compelled to write today because of a lesson God has taught me in her passing.

I was not the only one caring for my grandmother.  She had people (more service-hearted and hard-working than me) helping her to maintain as comfortable a life as possible the past few years.  Healthcare professionals, handymen and women, lawn maintenance people, vets and dog groomers (helping care for her best buddy, Kip), neighbors, brothers and sisters in Christ, and more, who took time out of their lives to try to make her life more comfortable.  So, when her handyman came by her house this morning to check on her, I knew my pain was not only my own, or even our family's.  I told him that my grandmother had unfortunately passed and he was grieved.  He kept telling me about various things he had done for her and ongoing discussions they'd had about her house.

"I helped do some things for her front porch," he told me . "I repaired the light fixture in the laundry room.  I worked on the gate in her backyard."

I realized that he, like myself, had poured so much of himself into caring for this woman; and though beloved, she was human.  She was here one day, with needs and worries - and gone the next.  So much work done.  And I knew that it made him feel a little empty.  If I were to let it, I could feel very empty, too.  I had found purpose in trying to provide for my grandmother as comfortable of an existence as possible.  But today, she no longer wants for anything that I can give – so, what now?

Though service is typical of Christians, I have begun to realize more and more that it's not our ultimate purpose.  It is a temporary, transient purpose.  The real gift we have is this: we live in a world created by God, whose Son has told us that "it is finished".  The work has been done.  We have been created to accept a gift.  I have found peace in just accepting the gift.  All the strings I would try to attach to it are my own.

Blessings,
Ashley Webb