When Teri’s grandmother (Granny) was put on Hospice care, we all knew it would not be long before Granny went home to be with Jesus. Granny came home from the hospital and spent her last week of life in her own room surrounded by four generations of her people and all those connected to her by marriage or friendship.  I was out of town headed to Marshall, Texas, for a meeting when Teri gave me the news. It was not unexpected; she had been in the hospital and was just tired.

When I got back from my meeting on Saturday, I rushed in to see Granny and found her in her bed looking like she was in a contented sleep. It struck me as I entered the room how awful death is, and also what a big life she lived. In Granny’s room were five generations of her people. Granny was sleeping, and Patti (Teri’s sister from Houston, Texas) was sitting in a rocking chair holding Elijah. Teri and her mother were chatting about something as they hovered over Granny. Bethan was chatting with Lori who was trying to look interested but I knew was trying to see what the Tigers (they were playing Tennessee) were doing. A living legacy was there keeping watch! Over the last week of her life not much changed. Granny slept while prayers were said, conversations with her were had, Beth Moore Bible Studies were done audibly and old letters from Buster, her late husband, were read. Family and friends flowed in and out of the room, conversations about food were engaged in, Teri helped organize Wallace’s garage, her daughters kept vigil, great-grandchildren flowed in and out of the room and Elijah, her great, great grandson was passed from one person to the next and then screamed for his mother when he was hungry. As in her life, so in her dying, Granny was never alone.

It is obvious that though she slept peacefully that last week, she knew her people where there. When certain things were said, certain people spoke or something was read, she tried to communicate; we knew that though her body was wasting away, she knew that she was surrounded by her people. It struck me as I pondered this that though Elijah had no idea what was going on, he one day will. At first it will just be in the sense and sensibility that flow from his parents, but one day, as he is older and has the capacity of reflection, he will realize that his roots run deep and strong, and he will realize that his life was being shaped by his past and his people. It is no accident when five generations of people gather in peace and laughter, giving thanks for those that shaped them. I do too many funerals and have been at too many death beds to take for granted the fact that Granny’s people all rise up and call her blessed, and the fact that she leaves behind a legacy of strength, virtue and peace is a testimony to a gospel life of peace and purpose.

In his book, A Wake for the Living, Andrew Lytle writes about his ancestors and says, essentially, that if we dismiss our past, or don’t know our past, or seek to ignore our past, we are lesser folk. I thought of a passage from his book when I was thinking about Elijah being present but not really knowing what was going on, and yet how, though he will never know Granny while she was alive, he is and will be shaped by her. In time, this living past—those of his people who are dead—will shape him. Lytle writes, “If we dismiss the past as dead and not a country of the living which our eyes are unable to see, as we cannot see a foreign country but know it is there, then we are likely to become servile. Living as we will be in a lesser sense of ourselves, lacking that fuller knowledge which only the living past can give, it will be so easy to submit to pressure and receive what is already ours a boon from authority.” I think Lytle is right and if so, Elijah is a blessed boy.

The mood that surrounded our family as Granny was in her room on the verge of death was not macabre or dreary—strange though it sounds—because Scripture is right: death is the last enemy. You could see this struggle here. In the original design, we were not made to die. As tired as Granny was, she hung on. We all hate death and somehow can’t make peace with it. Still, the ethos that pervaded the house was paradoxically somewhere between laughter and tears. Granny stood at the head of the five generations of her people who gathered and kept vigil; she was a servant and one who had all her life lived the gospel principle: “my life for yours.” She literally gave her life away for her family. She inhabited a place that all of us who knew her would call a “quiet contentedness.” We are what we are in large part because she made the gospel real to us. After her death, one minute we would weep and the next we were telling funny stories and belly laughing hysterically—because we can! She showed us how to live through hard times with a contented joy.

Yet another reason we can laugh with thanksgiving now, after her death, was made real to me from reading Richard North Patterson’s book Eclipse. A lawyer from America is defending an African freedom fighter and leader named Bobby Okari in a kangaroo court. A military dictator is trying him for sedition and murder in order to silence him and his non-violent movement. Damon Pierce, his American lawyer and friend, comes to be with him just before he is hanged. What struck me was that even in this martyr-type death, there was no hope of eternity or what lies beyond the veil. At best, a movement would continue but never was it uttered between lawyer and client anything like the words and prayers between Granny and her family. We gathered and wept and then laughed because we know that when the trap door opened and Granny died, she fell into the arms of Jesus and that one day when we see her we will not recognize her, as she takes on the form of her new self—perfected and clothed in the righteous of Jesus.