Echoes of the Generations
Mothers and Memorial Day: We were Here because They were Here.
Echoes in the Cemetery
May, 2023. With as many grandkids as my husband and I could pile into the van, we headed back to my hometown. With the enticement of the biggest small-town park you’ve ever seen, the kids’ excitement was bursting (we assumed, much more due to the allure of the park’s visit, than the meaning of the Memorial Day planters in tow).
Around the final bend, the towering tunnels and slides were sighted, but first we would stop at the neighboring cemetery. With our expectations low over how long we’d spend in quiet reflection, Papa and I climbed out with five boys between the ages of three to nine. They’d been here before and knew how to skillfully carry the potted flowers to our tombstone destinations, those of their great and great-great-grandparents.
We shared a few memories and snapped a picture of the kids huddled around the grave marker; then. . . something beautiful transpired. Our intentioned brief visit evolved into questions. Questions upon questions, turned into observations. With interest piqued, we seized the family-history opportunity.
Kids leading the way, we weaved ourselves from one end of the cemetery to the next and discovered family names and new families formed in marriage from almost two centuries prior. The boys “ooohed” and “aaahed” over the dates and connections. “Wow! She was born in the 1800’s!” “He died in 1919, but has the same name as great-grandpa; was Grandpa named after him?”
Names etched on tombstones inspired truncated versions of stories formerly passed down to me: Their great-great aunt was invited to church by sisters who were farm neighbors. Back in the far corner sits the marker of the women who invited her, and, hence, changed our family forever. Great-great grandma, Nanny, who lost a baby during child-birth, started studying the Bible in her 40’s and went on to mentor and teach until her final days. Whatever she put her mind to, she forged full-steam ahead in.
Stories behind the names and dates came to life. On this sunny afternoon, as joyful inquisition and laughter rang through the voices of our grandkids, I savored the breath-taking moment. Generations before us echoed through this current generation of children, now comfortably—and somewhat obliviously, circled up on the hardened ground—amidst the markers of their ancestors. We were here because they were here.
The echoes were not missed.
As we made our way back to the van, my heart absorbed the sight of the flowers with new-found delight. We had placed one of the bright geraniums next to my parent’s names—the real reason we were here today. As I noted the recent date on the other side of my mom’s dash, my mind traversed back to two years prior with its own “take-me-back” events.
Echoes in the Heartbeats
One hand in my daughter’s and the other gripped on my knee, I leaned in close. The ultrasound was underway, and we expectantly awaited. We knew first-hand the grief of deafening silence and the heartbreak that followed. Would we hear a heartbeat to signal everything was ok? After what seemed like forever, the air oozed out of our lungs; we had heard it—that incomparable echo.
The technician with whom we’d been here before for sadder news, moved the Doppler. Wait. What? A second echo? Two heartbeats? I gripped my daughter’s sweat-filled hand tighter. Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was my little pig-tailed girl? Together, we’d played hours of dolls, house, and school. She had an inner determination like none other, yet was known as our “attached-to-mom’s-hip” youngest. Fast—but sometimes excruciatingly slow—forward, now three decades later, my daughter would soon give birth to her own two daughters.
The dual echo of the heartbeats signaled two new and precious lives our family would gain. Their heartbeats began with fervor, ironically, the same year that two matriarchal heartbeats came to a painstaking, gradual stop. I pondered the two grandmothers our family recently said “Good-bye” to. Grammy Gigi and Grandma V were our moms, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers. In their gain and our loss, these two treasured mom-souls exited this life and entered into eternity. Simultaneously, two newborn souls were created, and they readied for their entry into life, the beginning of their own earthly dash. And, as certain as the audible echo of these in-utero heartbeats, was the intangible, imprinted echo of their great-grandmothers.
The dual echoes were not missed.
Echoes in the Funerals
That same year we’d gathered in the same church, in the same worship center to celebrate the grand-mother’s home-goings to the same place. Gigi and G’ma V both welcomed and accepted their Savior in their youth and trusted Him to the end—through life’s losses and loneliness. Their faith-endurance now projected through the proceeding generations. Adult grandchildren followed in the faith foot-steps of the two-generations-ahead mothers and served as pictures of attentive parenthood passed on. At these two strikingly similar funerals, intangible faith became tangible in those left behind.
Grammy Gigi was the life-long piano player. Upbeat hymns crescendoed off the walls of our childhood home and into each place she transitioned to as her life decrescendoed. Even in her life’s final decent, with vein-covered hands and an unsteady gait, she had slowly, but bravely made her way up the stage stairs to play for her granddaughter’s wedding. The same granddaughter was now belting out “How Great Thou Art,” at her grandmother’s funeral. Belief in the verses that resounded, and the hymn-truths that launched both a marriage and an eternity, provided purpose and hope for all of us.
Grandma V followed her granddaughters around the country to stages and soccer tournaments. These singing and soccer-cleated girls, now in their 30’s, trekked back hundreds of miles from their corners of the country to convene on behalf of their paternal grandma. Their blended harmony to sing their grandmother into heaven displayed the beauty of a mother’s ability to unite a family—even after she’s gone.
The grandson with whom Gigi meticulously baked hundreds of her famous banana-frosted cookies with, now preached the Word of God at her funeral and proclaimed the God of her salvation. The grandsons whom G’ma V continually prayed for, now recited her favorite Scripture passages and prayed us out with encouragement to press on. Her prayers had been heard.
Seated up close was the Hospice-nurse granddaughter who reciprocated the life-long love she’d received. In the final years, months, and weeks of her grandmother’s lives, our family nurse provided medical counsel and care. Love ricocheted in this dedicated care-recipient turned care-giver. At the beginning of her life, she was held in their arms. At the end of their lives, they were held in her arms.
Grandchildren once the beneficiaries of sacrificial love, knew how to return love. Love passed on was love passed back.
The echoes were not missed.
Echoes in Today and Tomorrow
Twins, Davy and Quinn have since joined us. We’ve quickly adjusted to life with them and slowly to life without their great-grandmothers. Davy has Gigi’s eyes and resembles her, while Quinn bears G’ma V’s determination.
More traits will undoubtedly surface as their personalities develop. We hope they gain the music and crafting skills of their great-grandmothers. But, more than anything, we hope the girls grasp echoed faith—faith symbolized from the oldest section of the home-town cemetery to the most recent—memorialized in the moms who directly passed a vibrant faith on to us.
From generation to generation, moms of faith echo through today. Some have made the pages of history books. Most have “mommed” under the radar while they walked their families through seasons of adversity and setbacks. So it was with my mom and my mother-in-law, the moms before them, and the moms with tombstones tucked back in the corner, who invited my ancestors to church.
As the current family matriarch, one day soon it will be my funeral. The grandkids of my grandkids might someday stroll through the cemetery and ooohh and aaahh over the dates on my tombstone. Whether generations not yet here will have my laugh or my smile insignificantly remains to be seen. Most importantly, will it be said of them, “She has her great-grandma’s Jesus.” May He be my resounding echo.
May the echo of faith in my Savior not be missed.