Time is Up
I woke up thinking about the little timer we have been using to play games around the table lately. Yesterday was the kid’s first day back to school, marking the end of our Christmas vacation. A time, I’m glad to say, was filled with family competitions beginning and ending with the little plastic timer full of white sand. We played acting games, and spelling games and wrote down words until the last grain of sand fell. No matter how many times we used that timer we were surprised every time it was announced, “TIME IS UP.”
The time is up, the new semester of school has started, and vacation is over. Oh, we had fun while it lasted.
I didn’t wake up in my own bed today. We traveled through the night to Brad’s parent’s home in Indiana. Today is Brad’s Grandma Stephens’ funeral. Her time ran out too.
We were here a week ago, we held her hand in the hospital and sang hymns together. She sang along and tapped her finger to keep time on the white blanket that covered her slender frame.
“I come to the garden alone...
Then sings my soul, my Savior God to thee...
Amazing Grace how sweet the sound... ”
She was getting better the doctors and nurses had assured us. She was going home soon. Her face and hands showed her 95 years but as we sang, a youthful spark glittered in her eyes.
We took to the road the next morning. Like the little car from the game of life, we packed ourselves and four kids into the blue van and drove. It had been a great vacation. The cousins all gathered to play while the grown-ups sat around and told stories until the hour grew late and it was time to go.
Time
No matter how you spend it, there is no slowing it down or holding it ransom. Even the greatest moments linger only in small snapshot memories.
As we drove that day the snow began to fall. By the time we got home, a few inches accumulated on the ground. Groggily the kids climbed out of the van. The presents, Christmas Candy, and empty water bottles littered the floor as I pulled out our suitcases and blankets. Judah awoke grumpy from his nap frustrated with trying to sleep strapped in and sitting up. We were all thankful to finally be home. The journey had taken 7 hours.
Home
It is always nice to have a place to come back to. This year since Isaiah moved out it feels different, a little bigger, and emptier. I don’t like to think about that part of growing up, so for this moment, I settle on the 6 of us together after the long trip back from Grandpa and Grandma’s house.
After the van was unpacked and dinner was simmering in the instant pot, I finally sat down to take a breath. Having a family keeps me busy most of the time, but I am glad for all of it. I can’t imagine my life without them.
Grandma Stephens came home from the hospital the day we drove back to Iowa. She got to sit in her favorite chair in her small living room. There, a picture of her seven children hung reminding her of all the moments she loved most. Her husband, the minister, hung there too smiling. He had been gone 20 long years. Could she have known, that night, as she fell to sleep how soon it would be when they would see each other again?
The next day she seemed to be on the mend, but unexpectedly the timer ran out. We were watching a movie in the theater when Brad got the call. His grandmother was gone.
What? No more time? But she was doing better?
The sand lay at the bottom of the funnel of her life. From each fallen grain, the story of Mary: wife, mother, and friend to many, speaks.
The first grain that fell was the story of her birth and the last was the moment she slipped away in the hospital after a tragic fall. Her heart just stopped beating. She flew away, in a blink of an eye.
I forgot to ask about where she was born. I didn’t think to ask her about her oldest memories when we sat to visit at the holiday gatherings year after year. We talked about the weather and the growing children. We talked of faith, she loved God dearly. But now that she is gone, I wish I knew more of her story.
Today we will gather around her casket. We will hug each other and tears will fall because although she lived to be 95, she was too young to go.
But then I remember the look on her face the last time I was with her. Her thin voice gained strength as she sang to her God. She was wearing a gold-colored hospital gown as she held my hand. The tray of half-eaten tomato soup was moved away to make room. Her voice still echoes in my heart with the hope that I too will see her again.
“When we’ve been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun. We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we first begun...”
