my father’s mother, my father’s Father

Upon my grandpa’s passing at the end of September, I wrote a blog realizing that…

Life isn’t going to hit the pause button for the next 11 months.

Those words typed a world away from where I sit now ring very true, as I receive news that my Grandma Maxine passed away on Nov. 4 at the age of 85.

I definitely feel the expected detachment from it all, sitting in a coffee shop on the other side of the world while my family sorts through belongings and makes funeral arrangements. I knew what I was signing up for when I stepped on that plane, leaving Ohio, leaving the United States, leaving my grandma. It was her husband who passed shortly before I left, and I knew full well the reality of her quickly declining health and that my goodbye to her before leaving on the race could well be the last.

Since my grandparents moved to Ohio a few years back, I have been able to watch both my parents love them extravagantly and often inconveniently, excessively and seemingly inconceivably. I watched my dad spend hours at the nursing home every night after work and my mom drive to countless doctors appointments, moving my grandparents through far too many living arrangements and handling more prescriptions than most pharmacists. I have to look no further than my family for a riveting portrait of love and sacrifice, and for that I am incredibly grateful. I am greatly humbled by their example, and certainly admire and respect them for their devotion and care.

After I got the news, I was grateful for having the time to process alone, as well as the love and prayerful support of my team. It was in their prayers for comfort, for me and my family, in the midst of brokenness and pain, that I feel I caught a greater glimpse into the character of God. I was broken for my dad back home, reflecting on his life of love and sacrifice, and in that moment God broke through and revealed Himself as the perfect loving Father – of me, of my grandma, of my dad, of all His children. For too long I’ve pushed this reality aside as truth without embracing all that it entails. The perfect Father that exemplifies all that is good and right of which I’ve caught a mere glimpse, who delights in giving Himself to His children. Pray that we can live in the reality of the love of our Father.

“And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.”