“Over the river and through the wood, to Grandmother’s house we go! The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifted snow…”
So begins the famous poem penned by Lydia Maria Child in 1844. I remember no horse-drawn sleigh or drifty snow, but I do remember singing this joyfully with my mama on the way to Grandma’s house.
Nearly everyone likes to share memories of going to Grandma’s house. It’s a noteworthy destination. Like most folks, recollections of my grandma’s house include memories of what she cooked. Savory chicken and dumplings topped the list, followed closely by homemade noodles with roast beef, peanut butter and brown sugar sandwiches, and cherry chocolate cake.
At Grandma’s house, I remember quiet mornings reading through piles of Reader’s Digest or being fitted for pretty Easter dresses and warm winter sweaters Grandma was creating just for me. I remember spending lazy summer afternoons outside playing with a dog named Sue and spinning my big brother plum dizzy on the tree swing. And I remember evenings filled with fiercely competitive games of dominoes or cards — Grandma was always the scorekeeper — sometimes followed by an Eskimo pie for dessert.
But unlike other folks, recollections of my grandma’s house aren’t confined to any one particular house. That’s because my grandparents moved. A lot! It’s a wonder their issues of Reader’s Digest kept coming. I think I counted 10 address changes for my grandma just in my lifetime, including two moves out of state, as well as at least two RVs and a vacation home in Arizona for a while. I vividly remember my mama lamenting about all the times she had moved and had to change schools as a child, mostly before she finished elementary school. And I know Grandma moved several times as a child herself.
Grandma was always moving. And for me, the kid who spent her entire childhood living in the same red brick house on 27th Street, this moving thing was completely foreign. I never even moved bedrooms until I went off to college. I stayed put. And everybody else’s grandma stayed put, it seemed.
But my grandma didn’t stay put. She liked the adventure of moving somewhere new, and her face lit up as she described the rooms of the place she was moving to next. I remember her telling me all about the Coweta house before they moved into it. She told me about its bright sun room with south-facing windows and its sunken dining room with rich red carpet and an arched doorway. With rooms like that, it sounded more like a palace than a house!
Partly because she was always moving — but mostly because she was a very intelligent lady, valedictorian of her high school class — Grandma never had trouble with directions. I suppose Grandpa might firmly disagree with me here, particularly if we were discussing the direction from which a vacation photograph was taken. But from my perspective, Grandma always knew which way was north. And she always knew the way to get where she needed to go. She had no trouble tracking down her children and grandchildren, scattered far and wide in various states, long before the days of iPhones or Google maps.
One of Grandma’s favorite Bible verses, which she carefully referenced in the inside cover of the Bible she gave me at age 11 — was Proverbs 3:5-6. It says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path.” It’s no wonder Grandma knew the way. She had God giving her directions at every intersection!
Even though she never suffered from being directionally challenged, Grandma endured plenty of trouble in life. She was born in the middle of a fierce March snow storm in western Oklahoma. At a young age, she experienced the loss of her parents’ farm, thanks to a crooked banker. She persisted through the Great Depression and came of age during World War II. She raised chickens and three kids on a farm. And whether she was selling fresh eggs, transcribing business correspondence in shorthand, or posing high school seniors for portraits, Grandma put in many hard hours as a working woman and small business owner. After retiring, she lost her oldest daughter, my mother, to cancer. And in 2006, she lost her beloved husband Lloyd.
In this world Grandma had many joys and sorrows, plenty of work to do, and countless troubles to get through. But now she has left all that behind. She has moved yet again.
Jesus tells us in John 14:2-3, “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to Myself, that where I am you may be also.”
I would love to hear Grandma describe this new house with so many rooms. Is she feasting in a great dining hall with luxurious red carpet? What direction does the front of the house face? And how bright is the Son room where Jesus meets her face to face in all His glory?
The Reverend Billy Graham, who passed away exactly two weeks before Grandma, said this: “Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”
I wasn’t there for Grandma’s last moments here in this world of troubles, but the one word everyone in my extended family used to describe those moments was “peaceful.” Grandma has gone peacefully into the presence of God. She has changed her address one last time.
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” These words of Jesus, as recorded in John 14:27, give me much peace as I remember and honor my grandma today.
Starlight Writer 