Goodbye Grandma Martin

When Renee and I started dating, her Grandmother, Clara Martin, got sick and had to go to the hospital. She couldn’t talk, so when Ren visited her they opted to communicate via a notepad next to her bed. The scribbles – hard to read at times – were Grandma at her joking best.

Grandma: “Is there a boy?”

Renee: “Maybe.”

Grandma: “I can see him. He’s tall, skinny, blond hair, and wears glasses.”

And then in very crooked handwriting: “You need to kiss him. Stir up those hormones.”

Grandma was big into premonitions and we liked to joke that this was one of them. Her life was family and church, married to Don, a Nazarene minister. Her first question to me when I walked into their house was “Zach, do you believe in the rapture?”. For the later part of her life, I think that’s how every conversation started, and when I told her I was a Calvinist who leaned Postmillenial (if even) she’d whip out her newspaper stories and link them to events in Revelation. She so wanted the rapture to happen before, in her own words, she’d “shuffle off this mortal coil.”

Ren has fond memories of her as a grandma. Sam, my father-in-law, and his sisters have a more eclectic and shaded bag of stories. It seems to me that evangelical Christianity in the 50s and 60s weighed more on the side of legalism than grace. Age has a way of mellowing folk, and the grandma I knew was always interested in story telling, God’s faithfulness, and a good bit of ornery arguing over theology. In short, pretty human.

She was loved. 9 children. 33 grandkids. A gazillion great-grandkids. Clan Martin.

Two weeks ago we had Christmas at Jan and Walt’s. Grandma lived in a room to the side for the past year or so. She was dying, the mortal coil lingering a few more days. We all piled in the room, children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Someone pulled out a guitar. And for a good while we all sang hymns and carols, our voices breaking into harmony as we surrounded Grandma with the songs of her life. It was a moment of blessings. And saying goodbye.

During the funeral, Kelly processed death. This was her third funeral – she’s had the good fortune of knowing 3 of her great-grandparents – and dust to dust finally came together in her mind.

“Grandma goes into the ground, right?” she asked.

“Yes.” I said.

“But…we’ll see her again?”

We will, I said. Some day.