Goodbye, Grandma

I knew this woman. I was blessed to know her. She used to call me "my girl", and she meant it. 

 I can see her colorfully veined hands scooping vanilla ice cream out with that pink plastic ice cream scooper. It's in my kitchen now. 

  When we'd go into her kitchen as kids, I'd always look for the "We Love Our Mailman" tin, because that's where the cookies were. My favorites were the chocolate chip cookies, thin and crunchy. She'd tell you, "Oh, just have one more. You deserve it." 

 I remember helping her prepare Wednesday night dinner one time, in her kitchen, and she was cutting cheddar cheese, and she took one of the slices and ate it in this almost sneaky way, admitting to me , like I was her co-conspirator, how much she liked cheese. She cut me off a piece, and we slyly enjoyed our cheese together. 

 Grandma was a grandma to my friends. When I found out that she had died, I knew that I needed to tell Emily and Virginia about it, and I called them both. They were her granddaughters, too. 

 Although it is kind of embarrassing to admit, because I am in theatre, I stepped back at the news of her death and asked myself what I was feeling, so that I could use that experience if it was ever needed on stage. 

 I realized that I was not mostly SAD. The feelings and reactions were fuller and more complex than that. At her funeral last week, I was asked to do the first scripture reading, and my Uncle Charles said that I could say something beforehand. 

 I walked up to the lectern in a very focused way, and leaned into the mic, and, through a breaking voice and unstoppable tears, told the many people sitting out in the pews that, "If I had to sum up what Grandma meant to me, it was that, because I knew Grandma Boerger, I knew Jesus more."

 Her death feels not mostly sad, but...important. Growing up near her, I often thought about how I wanted to be like her when I got older. She was a widow whose life was by no means over. She lived joyfully and  leaned into the lives of others. She knew the rare art of listening well. I was always afraid of her death, of how hard it would be. And now she is gone...

 ...but not gone at all. As I stared at her body in the coffin a few nights ago, I heard the words so clearly in my mind: "She is not here. She has risen." 

 Grandma's life on earth was proof to me that God is here. And her death made more real than ever to me that God is there, too, on the other side of death. 

 God, please say hello to Grandma for me. And if she wants to know who sends it, just say it's Elizabeth, 

 her girl.