What do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? This question has rolled around in my head more times than I could possibly count over the last few years. At first I was convinced it would be a doctor. The first time I saw a patient die, I knew that was not it. After that I just knew it would be a counselor. But after hearing the stories of people I met I realized my heart couldn’t take the incredible weight of knowing these people and not having relationships with them. I remember coming to a point my life where I sat in my room and wondered what I would do with my one wild and precious life. I felt like I was unsuccessful. Like somehow I was failing at this whole life thing. I felt like I was wasting the life God had given me by being mediocre. It wasn’t long after the feelings of doubt started to stir, that I got a phone call that changed my life. Merely hours later I got on a plane headed to California to say goodbye to my grandma. My best friend. My champion. My heart. I remember distinctly climbing into the bed I’d been in so many times before and slipping into the familiar arms of my grandmother. I lied there staring at her face, begging myself to memorize every smile line, the way her eyes shone, how her breath was even and constant just like her, and how loved I felt as her worn hands stroked my cheek and brushed the bangs of my eyes. I prayed I could somehow imprint the feeling of that moment into my mind forever. Three days later I kneeled by her bed, about to leave for the airport, and kissed her gently praying that this was another moment that would never escape me. As I hugged her for what I knew would be the final time, I found all the memories I had of her flooding through my mind. All the times she pulled me into her arms to dance in the middle of the kitchen. How she sang to me in the mornings to wake me up. How I could talk her into going to Target any day of the week.The “grandma’s field trips” she took me on as a child. The long talks we shared on the porch. How she would always make me grilled cheese sandwiches with the crust cut off. All the memories poured together into the story of her life. At this moment I realized that there was not one particular event that made my grandmother’s life wild and precious, but a series of moments strung together that created a beautiful story.
Fast forward One year and eight months. I received a letter in the mail with no return address, but a note in a white envelope enclosed within a bigger one. The note said “your grandma asked me to send you this your senior year. I hope you know how much she loved you.” This made me freeze. I was terrified and thrilled all at the same time. I waited almost a month to open the letter on her birthday, and when I finally did the words on the paper were more beautiful than I could’ve ever imagined. She told me her favorite memory of us. It was when I demanded she read “Gone With the Wind” to me at 5 years old. She told me what she loved most about me, and she told me how much she would miss me. A little P.S. To remind me that I was loved always. Then she wrote the words “you’re everything I ever hoped I could be in life and more. You are who I wanted to be when I grew up.” Those words hit me. They made me stop and begin to realize the things I do matter and are noticed. Reading the story of our lives through her eyes made me feel that I, too, have a beautiful story that is strung together through a series of moments in time. Her story mattered. My story matters. What God does through me matters most. So, now I ask myself almost three years later the same question: what will I do with my one wild and precious life? My answer: I will tell my story, because in the end, that is what really matters. So, thank you Grandma for showing me what a wild and precious life truly is.
XOXO,
Maddie
P.S. I love you
