New appreciation for Grandma
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
In her autobiography, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Mere historic incidents and personal events are frivolous and of no moment, unless they illustrate the ethics of Truth. . . .The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” (Retrospection and Introspection, pp. 21-22).
Human history has its ups and downs; however, when we fully understand our oneness with God, there is solid, constant harmony that has nothing to do with a fluctuating material record. Ridding oneself of past human baggage brings peace to our lives.
Recently, as I listened to our organist play the old tune “Harbor Lights” at our Wednesday church meeting, I was fondly reminded of my grandmother whom we called Mamama. (Yes, that’s really what we called her! In kindergarten I got into trouble with the teacher for “misspelling” her name with the extra m).
Grand Mamama was known as “Kate the fisherwoman” where she lived in the summer. She was an independent woman who was a ballerina on the stage in France as a teenager, and drove from Indiana to California in the early 1900s without a man, a big deal in those days.
I think about these things today and admire her courage. I’m also grateful I’ve been able to let go of the past and “revise” my history. Let me back up a bit.
As a child, I did not think of Grand Mamama as particularly “grand” or noble. In fact, we did not get along. I was impetuous and somewhat temperamental, and I thought she was impatient and judgmental.
Once while vacationing at my grandparents’ log cabin on a lake, my older sister was asked to go fishing.
Always the active five-year-old, I was left out. Feeling hurt, I hid in a cedar closet. I still remember taking in the pungent cedar smell while my grandmother, who’d stayed behind, searched desperately about the house for me, yelling out my name. She may have worried that I had wandered into the vast surrounding forest of evergreens and gotten lost.
The “new kid” had to figure out that she was loved.
The search lasted until the family returned from fishing, and it was starting to get dark. I remember my parents disciplining me for hiding and scaring my grandmother. As I grew up, I began to understand I could forgive myself for hiding that day and be healed of repeatedly feeling left out of love, and retreating quietly into myself. Essentially, paraphrasing from the Bible, I learned to put off “the old kid” with her deeds and put on “the new kid.” The Bible encourages us to put off the old man with his deeds and put on the new man (see Col. 3:9, 10).
So I learned to let go of the past. I began to realize my worth as God’s child and become a “new kid” and not just with my grandmother but with everyone I knew. The new kid prayed to love everybody, seeing all grand as God, Mind does. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Man, governed by immortal Mind, is always beautiful and grand” (p. 246).
The “new kid” had to figure out that she was loved. My grandfather Pop helped me to learn this when he took me under his wing. His love was a magnet drawing me to him. I would sit by his side or walk with him in the park, listening to him talk about the life and ideas of Mary Baker Eddy.
Despite my character changes for the better, my grandmother and I still had many years of friction.
The turning point came in my teens when my grandparents took care of me one weekend. We stayed in an artist colony town, where my grandmother often went to oil paint. I began to appreciate her talent for art and to see how others enjoyed her company because she was witty and fun. I started to see her as grand.
Both my grandmother and I softened and began talking and listening to each other. Before she died several years later, I was at her bedside saying “The Lord’s Prayer” appreciating how Our Father loved both of us, and we loved each other.
My discovery of Mamama as grand proves to me how understanding more of God, Truth, leads us to loving solutions in relationships. The “material record” was dissolved by Truth, and I am grateful that I had such a Grand Mamama!