Yesterday would have been my Grandma Meckel’s 96th birthday.  I remember my grandmother as nearly having a saintly existence.  She was a faithful Catholic and a spiritual inspiration to me for my first 30 years.  Her favorite things to do were to cook and care for her family.  Growing up, I used to resist her insistence that I wake up for 8am Mass and say my prayers.  I suppose that is pretty common.  We used to take family vacations to see my relatives in Texas.  It would be Grandpa, Grandma, my brother Mat, and I all packed into a Lincoln Continental.  My grandma and I would have to sit in the back the entire trip because “that’s where the girls belonged.”  My brother only made the situation worse by positioning the passenger seat all the way back and in a full recline, all with a huge grin on his face.  I used to imagine doing terrible things to that grin.

I learned life lessons from my grandma.  The most important thing she taught me was how to care for others.  Grandma was love.  The way she loved her family was fierce.  We were everything to her.  At our family gatherings, grandma was up at dawn to prepare the meals for the day.  Everyone started their day with a breakfast food from each of the five main food groups.  Grandma tried so hard to teach me that it was the woman’s duty to prepare the meals and clean house while the men worked.  That didn’t often go as well as intended.  Regardless, my grandmother taught me much more than how to iron clothes and set the dinner table.  She taught me life lessons.  Once, my brother and I were at a store with her and Grandpa when I asked her to buy me a little yellow pencil with a big chicken shaped eraser on the top.  Grandma said I didn’t need it.  I remember seeing my brother’s face smiling as I had to put the pencil back on the shelf.  I was around 6.  I thought about it some more, looked over my shoulder for a clerk, and put the pencil in my pocket.  Later, that evening, I got my “new” pencil out to write with it.  Grandma discovered it and told me to go put on my shoes.  She had Grandpa drive us back to the store where he waited in the car with my brother.  I walked up to the clerk’s desk and returned the pencil I had stolen.  I was humiliated.  I hated that feeling.  Walking out, my Grandma told me that I had been wrong.  She asked me how I felt.  All I could do was cry.  She told me to never do it again.  That was the last time we would ever speak of it.

My parents divorced when I was three and Mat was six.  That sort of life experience can only be described as a monumental loss.  The life I knew had been shattered.  Everything was changed.  My security was disrupted and my future was uncertain.  After a couple years, my dad had to move away due to his job circumstances and suddenly I was limited to seeing him on Christmas and summer break.  That was very, very hard for a little girl.  He had been the one who taught me to say my prayers at night and ride a bike.  He sang countless songs and read hundreds of books to me before bedtime.  My favorite memory was when he would lay down beside me and wait for me to fall asleep and then he would drift off himself.

Today, I see that loss as a blessing.  Divorce is awful.  There is no way to sugarcoat that fact.  However, what I gained ended up being remarkable.  New, incredible people entered my life.  I acquired two extraordinary step-parents and was blessed with a little sister.  I consider all three gifts from God and without experiencing the pain of divorce, I wouldn’t have known the joy of these important people in my life.

The first book I read after I lost my son was called A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser.  On the inside of the cover of his book, Sittser says, “The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment in our lives.  Instead, the defining moment can be our response to the loss.  It is not what happens to us that matters so much as what happens in us.”  The author lost three generations of his family in one car wreck – his mother, his wife, and his young daughter.  How does a person heal from a loss like that?  Where would you start?

Faith.  I have faith in God’s plan for me and my family.  I do not get a blueprint of my life.  I can’t see what will happen in the future, so I have to trust in God.  My circumstances are devastating.  But, I am determined to transform that devastation into one of life’s blessings.