My Grandmother and the Rose
O, my love is like a red, red rose.
—Robert Burns
. . .
This is the time of tension between dying and birth.
—T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday
On the one year anniversary of my grandfather’s death, I found myself on a plane to North Carolina to be present for my grandmother’s final days. It felt all too familiar—that heavy cloud of anxious dread, praying with every breath that she would hold on and that I would make it in time to say a meaningful goodbye. Preparing to sit with my beloved one in the space between life and death during the liminal season between winter and spring, to hold her hand until the end: this felt like too much to bear and exactly as it should be, all at the same time.
As I entered her hospital room well after midnight, I was met by a hushed sense of vigilance. There was a tender watchfulness that was hovering over her—angels, perhaps—and the soft low light made her room feel like a chapel, her bed an altar on which she offered up her final hours as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to our Lord. I leaned in to kiss her forehead, inhaling the familiar scent of her hair and skin, knowing full well it might be the last time I encountered such warmth on this side of heaven. As I pulled away, I noticed a long-stemmed red rose with a small tube of water at the base of its stem lying near her on the bed. My aunt explained, “Grandpa got that for her. We asked her if there was anything she wanted to smell, like lavender or rose, and she said rose.” A rose to smell was her last request; the exquisiteness of this speaks to who she is more than words could ever tell.
Over the next two days, the red rose became an extension of her. We lovingly adjusted it each time it fell, placing it near her head or near her arms, wanting to preserve the beauty of it. Every time we touched the rose, its petals faded a bit more, growing limp as her parting hour drew closer. “Isn’t she beautiful? You’re as pretty as a rose, Mary,” my grandfather said over and over like a prayer, like a liturgy for the dying. As she neared heaven we kissed the soft petals of her skin, we stroked her hair, we smelled her sweetness, we gave her small amounts of water—us, the weeping gardeners; my grandmother, the rose. Somehow, her countenance grew ever brighter and more beautiful as the hours passed and the rose faded.
Beauty and grief co-mingled in an outpouring of love, tenderness, and song as a seemingly endless stream of people flowed in and out of her room to say goodbye, but mostly to say “Thank You” to the woman who had shown them the face of Christ and the joy of the Spirit. My earliest memory is of my grandmother sitting on my bed, singing an Irish lullaby to me before I fell asleep. My last memories with my grandmother include me sitting on her bed and singing with four generations of my family over her, lullabying her songs back to her as she fell asleep in the arms of Christ. This symmetry of beginnings and endings is too much to bear and just as it should be, all at once.
During one such hour of singing, I learned that one of her favorite hymns is In the Garden.
I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses,
And the voice I hear falling on my ear,
The Son of God discloses
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own,
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other, has ever, known!
My grandmother knew the exquisite joy and beauty of seeking God in prayer and communing with him through praise for hours each morning, while the dew was still on the roses. As I sat by my grandmother’s bedside, Jesus’ words to Mary when she first found her resurrected Savior in the garden echoed in my mind: “Woman, do not cling to me.” Jesus finds Mary weeping over his empty tomb, but she does not recognize him until he speaks her name.
Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.
(John 20:16-18)
I always thought Jesus telling Mary not to hold on to him was a bit harsh. Who wouldn’t want to cling to the person they thought they had lost, but is now standing in front of them alive? It is our natural inclination in grief to hold on to every word spoken, every smile given, every last hand squeeze and fluttering of the eyelids.
But in living with the reality of my grandmother’s death, I now think about this passage differently. In the days after my grandmother went to heaven, I researched In the Garden and learned that the hymnist’s inspiration for his song was the very passage listed above. C. Austin Miles felt inspired by Mary’s encounter with Jesus in the garden, and his lyrics describe this encounter as one of love—not scolding. In his love for Mary, Jesus had more in mind for her than her clinging expression of grief. Jesus had life and more life in store for Mary, and he has this in store for all who call on His name.
As Christians, we do not cling to loss and death like they are the truest thing about this world. We cling to life—and not just life, but resurrection life. Life to the full. We proclaim to the world, I have seen the Lord! with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is how my grandmother Mary lived her life, and it brings me such joy to know that her faith has now been turned to sight.
In her final hours, I longed to cling to my grandma more than anything. I rehearsed our last phone conversation in which she told me, “We will love and praise the Lord forever!” Looking back, something about that phone call felt like it would be the last. The sense of gratitude and grief that clung to me after we hung up told me all I needed to know about what the next month would hold, even before I knew it. After she had gone, I sat on the bed and placed my hand on her, just wanting to make the last time I would touch her last a little longer. I made the sign of the cross with rose oil on her hand. I kissed her and said, “I love you Grandma. I’ll see you soon,” knowing she couldn’t hear me. But I said it anyways because Love does cling in grief but Love also lets go in blessing so that it can share with the world the joy it has found. That’s what Mary did for Jesus, and I suppose that is what I am doing for my grandmother: both clinging and letting go. Weeping and proclaiming.
Because of my grandmother’s life and death, I have seen the Lord. May it be so with all of us who have loved and lost, and may we grow ever brighter and more beautiful with each day that passes in the garden of God, knowing full well that our death is no death at all, but life itself.
May our very lives proclaim, “I have seen the Lord!”
Amen.
To Go Deeper: Listen to It Is Not Death To Die by Sovereign Grace Music. We played it for my grandmother and it has brought me such comfort in the days since her passing.
It is not death to fling
Aside this earthly dust
And rise with strong and noble wing
To live among the just
It is not death to hear
The key unlock the door
That sets us free from mortal years
To praise You evermore.