Last week I was handed the difficult job of telling my grandma that her last cat died. While I was digging the hole that would be Minue’s final resting place I started thinking about how best to break it to grandma.
I realized that stuff like this has more and more existential potency the older you get. Existential potency? Ya, I made that up – maybe that’s not really a thing. But it’s all I could come up with to describe those moments when you realize that life is in constant flux and you ain’t gonna stop where it’s heading.
Sure it’s only a cat. But that cat was with my grandma for the past sixteen years. She was comfort when my grandpa passed away. There’s probably five thousand other things she was there for in my grandma’s life too.
As I expected, it was hard for my grandma. She talked to me for the next several hours about dozens of different moments in her life. I listened and asked questions letting her process it.
I wish I could drive home some deep point from all of this, but all I’ve got is that it’s important that we process our lives and help others do the same. This whole messy journey is not without purpose. Stopping periodically to evaluate the journey will often give us courage to move forward as we see God’s faithfulness in the past. I have to believe that he’s gonna pour out enough grace to get me through what’s ahead. He did get me this far after all.
And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work. (2 Cor. 9:8)
Prayers for grace for you!
I never knew she talked at length like that.