It was so much more than the mashed potatoes.
My grandmother was diagnosed with polio when she was a tiny kid. I still picture her sitting in her tweed, olive green armchair, legs crossed, wearing one big black shoe.
She had a noticeable limp and used a cane to steady herself. She walked crooked; and yet somehow made it down the rickety cellar stairs to do laundry or fetch some canned goods stored in the basement pantry. Walking required effort; standing for too long was tough. It wasn’t until I was older that I ever thought of her as someone with a handicap. Her radiance was forefront and her joy was sincere. As a kid, she was oxygen to my young self. Insecurities and childhood sadness floated away on those visits to Eddystone Avenue when I got to hang out in her welcoming presence. Something settled down inside of me.
Sitting around with my feet kicked up watching The Lawrence Welk Show (😣) or Gilligan’s Island (🥰), no cares in the world…
I could use some Jane Cassidy visits today. I would welcome time with her as I navigate a culture and country off the rails.
Simplicity, gratitude, and kindness marked her. But so did her mashed potatoes. Set like a trophy in the center of the table, piled high with melted butter dripping in and through the crevices. Their smell wafted through the rooms of that tiny brick house and awakened every last taste bud in my mouth. These were the best carbs out there, no debate. Thankfully, my mom mixed those creamy mashed potatoes right into our family dinners and on to this day.
Throughout my childhood and adolescence, I witnessed Jane Cassidy’s life teem with grace and surrender. Endangered traits today. Killed off by greed, hunger for power, and toxic insecurity. Let’s be clear, my grandmother was born and raised before the inception of the radio, television, and computer. That part of her life was easier. Distraction was not the option it is today. “Information overload” was not a daily reality. Consumerism and convenience were not saturating every single thing to the point where, today, easy things now feel difficult.
Lucky for her. That’s what I envy.
But I don’t minimize her suffering; it was troublesome and always present. Ordinary obligations were challenging. Basic responsibilities were fraught with strenuous effort. Lumbering herself into the car or reaching for a tea towel that fell on the floor were toilsome. Endurance and self-control were built into her; life required it. And as a result, she was 100% with you when she was with you. In many ways, I miss the pre-tech times, that different way of existing in the world, a more present way of being. Today we scamper around, pulled in every direction, trying to survive the tsunami of technology. We may sit for hours and scroll on a screen, never realizing the time we lost. We don’t even know someone is talking to us. And for what? Nothing gained. More anxiety. Less human connection. Discontentment like a plague over humanity.
Come, Lord, Jesus.
My grandmother’s contentment and restfulness were noticeable, even magnified as they sat juxtaposed with her broken body. I wouldn’t think contentment and suffering could co-exist. But in Jane, they did. God gave her peace and endurance, and she cooperated with him to access it.
I’m not sure at that time in my life, if there was anyone I felt such internal calm around as I did with her.
My grandparents lived in a small two-bedroom house with one bathroom, only a tub with no shower head. No master suite with a walk-in shower and two sinks; no large closets or fluffy rugs. No full-length mirror. Their bedroom was at the end of a narrow hallway on the left, and the room we kids stayed in for sleepovers was on the right. Each night when I would wander from the bathroom to the bedroom, I would glance into their room and say goodnight.
I’ll never forget what I saw.
On one side of the bed, my grandmother had somehow cranked her body down onto the floor, onto her knees, to pray. Her big black shoe awkwardly weighed her foot down on its side. Her face was soft with no stress lines. Beautiful. On the other side, my grandfather was on his knees, hair sticking up, striped pajamas, scruffy face. Hands folded. Eyes closed.
My formative self was a witness to this scene year after year, every night we spent in that house. And though I was too young to grasp the measure of it, I got a sneak peek into a sliver of holiness emanating, somehow, out of a human. That image washed over me like the ocean, softening my edges, showcasing for me the action of surrender. They didn’t teach me surrender, they lived it out on that floor by their bed. I recall later, when she was too sick to kneel, it was as much a loss for my tenth-grade self as it was for her. I mean that.
My grandmother embodied the opposite of everything I witness in our culture today. Rude responses. Detached connection. Busyness. Ego. Divided-attention. Greed. Love of power. Image obsession. Control. Cruelty to the less fortunate. Christianity cloaked in a love for power, comfort, and obsessive safety. Her love for Jesus was not a plastic facade. Her trust was not in the government. She taught me that faith and hope matter, but “the greatest of these is love.”
I never heard an unkind word leave her lips.
I recall wondering out loud to my mom, “What sin would mommom possibly have to confess?” She was pure to me in every sense. Her soft skin was like her soft spirit. I still can’t name a sin, although if I probably had to guess, growing up handicapped and poor, I’m certain she was tempted toward what Adam and Eve were tempted toward, what every single one of us is tempted toward: self-sufficiency.
The sin underneath every other sin.
I wonder if her bad leg was a mercy. Certainly a severe mercy, but a mercy nonetheless. Her bad leg was a buffer to pride. It doesn’t always go this way, but her suffering resulted in humility and gratitude rather than cynicism and self-reliance. Crisis is not something we wish on anyone; we certainly don’t want it for ourselves. Yet, mysteriously, crisis is a seedling 🌱.
In time, it turns into an opportunity for growth 🌳. Profound, maturing growth.
We become stunted when we avoid hardship. In our desire to fix, we isolate and lose touch with others. We want to side-step challenges. We want to play God. We want to win at all costs. We want to escape. We want to be in control. All the while losing our humanness, the part of us that is real and relatable to others.
Our idol of comfort and safety may be the very thing that kills us. Maybe not our bodies, but our souls. Maybe we will survive, but maybe we won’t thrive.
We forget that God is our Father and that He holds every paycheck, every doctor’s report, every meal, every job, every relationship, every setback, every success, every win, every hope in His hands.
My scary basement…
I live in an old house built over 100 years ago. A horror movie could set up a scene or two in our cob-weby, cement-crumbling, single-bulb-hanging basement. It’s exactly the same one in Psycho. I have no idea what creatures live in the corners and crevices. I don’t actually want to know. But I will put this out there, if you can’t find me, I may be stuffed into the wall with my heart pulsing to The Tell-Tale Heart Part II. 😳 That’s not the point but it gives you an idea of basements in these old Pennsylvania houses. Mine looks exactly like my grandmother’s. Before writing this, I had to start a load of laundry in the basement. As I opened the door to carefully carry my laundry basket down the narrow, ramshackle stairway, I remembered her unsteady gait; how did she get down those stairs? Endurance and courage. Willingness to face hardships. Human risk-taking strides. Not being overcome with fear, but overcoming fear by living.
Legacies are not the topic of most conversation today. But they should be.
Whew, especially now. We need some modern heroes. We need odd people who look nothing like the norm.
Jane Cassidy left us a legacy of endurance, kindness, and long-suffering. Most of all, she left a legacy of presence. She was always present. Money will never attain that. We must cultivate it. A rare and endangered quality, it’s time to choose to be present. With ourselves. With others. And with the Spirit of God, who is our companion and source.
We must be still enough to settle down enough to stop the spin.
Times of silence and purposeful reflection offer space to connect with the most essential questions. What do we care about? What do we live for? What do we want with our lives? What do we want to create? Who do we want to connect with? How do we want to spend our time? What does it mean to thrive? What is getting in the way of me living?
Critical choices.
We must sacrifice the easy habits in order to experience the satisfying gifts God meant for us to enjoy.
God’s work is not to solve issues for us, but to transform us. With all our battle wounds, with our broken bodies, with our sad memories, with our financial setbacks, with our losses, with our hurts and disappointments, with our fears…He is always and forever taking care of us, always moving toward us, always replacing our solitary self-sufficiency with his presence. He knows it all and cares about it all. This belief was tucked deep into the bones of my grandmother; hence, she was at rest. Redemption and freedom our not our jobs; they are his. And lest we get confused, most times, he moves about as fast as Jane. God doesn’t value speed, and until we get that, we won’t notice what he is doing, and we won’t wait on him to do it.
I miss my grandmother…
Her big shoe and her mashed potatoes. You never know how God will make his mysterious way into the room.
“Crises can be holy beginnings if we allow them.”