Last night I hung out with my dad, his fiance, Sharon, and my grandma. Over the past year I've grown exceeding grateful for these three people, as well as my mom and step-dad, Jay. Family becomes increasingly important as you get older and your perspective broadens. My roots matter more as the years continue to pile up like tattered window frames behind me, and time with those who share my name seems comprised of moments that still my soul and remind me of who I am.
Last night my grandma carried with her a photo album I'd never scene. Over the years I have spent many hours at grandma's apartment paging through the blue, brown, and green albums. The lines on the covers have grown as familiar to me as the lines that cut through my palms. Each page tells a story that brings me back years, decades, even allowing me to peer into my grandma's own twenties.
The album I saw last night was older. Cloudy black and white 5x7's captured seemingly ancient first communions, confirmations and weddings. Every picture told a story. Each my grandma told with a fluency only people who have earned the right are endowed with. Sometimes she told them with her eyes closed, and as she took the three of us back through mysterious decades that have quietly crafted some of the impulses of my heart I realized the unfamiliar faces that God has used to land my grandma, my dad and I where we are today constitute a long line of pain.
Last night I learned of my great-grandmother, Till. Her parents owned a boarding house. Visitors came and went over the course of her teenage years, and one particular man, Charles, despite being twenty years her senior took a liking to Till. After a couple passes through town (always resting at the boarding house) Till and Charles were pregnant. The family was disgraced and threatened to disown the marriage. The marriage held firm, at least, until Charles left Till with eleven children. Till would outlive all but three of her children. My grandpa barely knew his father, and followed after the pattern set before him. He, in turn, left my grandmother with three teenage children, one of whom would be my father. A long line of pain.
Till, in her old age (she died when I was ten) was terrified of death. My dad still has her rosaries. She was constantly praying, thumbing across the worn beads, letting the passed prayers fall through her fingers like water through cupped hands. She prayed constantly until the day she died, fearing that God would inevitably damn her. She had more skeletons in her closet than she could count, she once told my grandma. A long line of pain.
I suppose I could go on, moving to my mom's side of the family. I could write about how cancer took her mother when she was very young, how a drunk driver took her eldest brother a month later. A long line of pain.
The long line of pain that I now look back on threatens to define me. As I drove home from my dad's last night my eyes filled with years as I thought about the years of sorrow that have plagued my family. I shed a few tears for the people in my family tree who never knew how to. I did so out of sadness, but also with conviction.
The long line of pain is turning. My dad stuck around and loves me more than I can say. My mom got sober and serves those who struggle with their own sobriety. My arms quickly throw themselves around both of them when I see them, despite the fact that their marriage ended almost 25 years ago. The line is turning and I find myself defined not merely by the patterns that have been set before me, but but another, more ancient reality--grace. The long line of pain has succumbed, in God's perfect timing and ultimate sovereignty, to the breaking through of His kingdom in the lives of those I love most.
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