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Chapter Eleven

C laire knew she was acting like a child, but she felt like a child. Her whole world had come crashing down around her in the last year, and now more of it was crashing—more than she even thought she could have crash was crashing.

She knew that bad things happened to people all the time. She didn’t expect her life to be trial-free. She didn’t expect good things to happen to her on a daily basis and for her never to experience hard times.

But it seemed like this was harder than most, because the hits just kept on coming. Lord? How much more am I supposed to take?

She let that question hang in her mind for a bit, but then it seemed like God reminded her that she wasn’t supposed to take it alone. She was supposed to give her burdens to the Lord.

But how do I do that? Just dump them on You and walk away?

There was no answer, but in her mind, she thought she heard “yes.”

Wasn’t that what Jesus said? To cast your burdens on Him because His yoke was easy and His burden light. She was just supposed to give it to God.

And then what? Not worry about Grandma? Pretend Grandma wasn’t dying ?

That wouldn’t be terrible. Grandma would be going to heaven, to be with Jesus. She would be happier.

But life would be sad here without her.

Jesus would still be with her—Claire. Of course there would be sad times.

Even Jesus wept when Lazarus died, and that was knowing that He would be raising him from the dead.

So it wasn’t that people weren’t supposed to feel sadness—it was just…

They were supposed to trust the Lord and keep walking on.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

She wasn’t sure why that verse popped into her mind. After all, Grandma wasn’t dead yet. But she was dying. Of that there was no doubt.

“Claire?” She heard a soft rap on her door, and then her grandma’s voice again. “Claire?”

“Come on in, Grandma,” she said, straightening herself off the bed and wiping the tears off her face. She was angry at Josiah because he knew. He knew, and he hadn’t told her. That made her so mad she wanted to grab a hold of his neck and just shake it. And she wasn’t usually prone to violence.

“Oh, sweetheart,” her grandma said, out of breath from climbing the stairs and tottering a bit even with her cane.

“I’m sorry you had to climb the stairs. You really didn’t have to come up. I was going to come down as soon as Josiah left.”

“He’s gone, but… I did want to talk to you about that.”

“Grandma. He didn’t tell me that you were sick! You didn’t tell me. Don’t you know that I would want to know that?”

“And don’t you know that you were already going through so much? I wanted to protect you. You are my granddaughter. I love you.”

“I love you too. And I want to know when there’s something wrong.” She paused, then tilted her head. “Don’t you want to know when there’s something wrong with me?”

Grandma’s gnarled hand slid across the bedspread—one she had made with her own fingers, those same fingers, more than two decades ago.

Claire remembered Grandma sitting in her chair that summer, quilting as her grandchildren played around her, coming and going.

She was a teenager at the time, and she’d stopped, eaten cookies and drunk tea and talked to her grandma, and then run off again with her friends.

She couldn’t quite remember, but that was probably a couple of summers after she’d kissed Josiah.

“Of course I do. I didn’t want… I was going to tell you. I didn’t really want to keep it away from you, but I wanted you to get settled some, get a support system around you. Have you made any friends yet since you’ve come back?”

“I talked to Grace this morning.”

“There. Grace will be good for you. See? If I’d told you earlier, you wouldn’t know Grace was back.”

She didn’t want to argue with her grandma, so she just kept her mouth closed. “Josiah should have told me. I went to him about your bruises, I talked to him. He pretended he didn’t know anything.”

Grandma was quiet for a moment, just softly stroking Claire’s hand, and then she said, “I think that one of the best things a Christian can do is determine that no matter what someone does to them, they are not going to get offended over it. They’re just going to let all the hard things slide off their backs. ”

“What person can do that?” Claire said without even thinking about it.

“Well, with the spirit of the Lord, we can. Because after all, Christ Himself commanded us to be kind to those who persecute us. We are commanded to not just not get offended—we’re supposed to be kind.

And I think you’ll find if you practice that, your life gets a lot easier and less stressful if you’re not constantly being upset over what someone else might have done, might’ve said, or might have that you want.

Just determine that you’re not going to get upset. ”

She stared at her grandma. The idea was novel.

Not get upset? But immediately she could see the advantages.

After all, she’d just been miserable for how long?

And before that, for almost an entire year she’d been offended and upset over what her husband had done.

What if she just hadn’t gotten upset? What if she had just given it to God, which she’d been thinking about before, and not worried about it?

The idea was not completely novel, but it was utterly intriguing.

Because she wanted to live a life of calmness and peace, the way her grandmother seemed to have.

“Is that your secret?”

Grandma smiled. “It might be one of them. But I don’t think it’s a secret. If it is, I’m sharing it with you now.”

Claire smiled. “You know I’m not going to be able to do this overnight, right?”

“Of course not. I didn’t do it overnight either.

It was a lifetime of deciding that no matter what people did to me, I wasn’t going to get upset with them.

I was unsuccessful most of the time at first, but the more I determined that I wanted to be like Jesus—kind, compassionate, levelheaded even when the Pharisees were constantly trying to trip Him up—the better I got at it.

And the happier my life was. It’s funny how happy you are when you’re not busy getting upset with people. ”

“So I can get upset with situations?” Claire was mostly teasing, because she was pretty sure her grandma was talking about people and situations.

“Your life will be a lot happier, a lot easier, a lot less stressful, if you just give it to God. Just admit that it’s in God’s hands, and He’s going to do what He wants to, and it’s going to be the best for you.”

“I just can’t see how losing you could be best for me. Or best for my children. We’ll miss you.”

“I’ll live on. You’ll make sure that I do. In fact, you might remember the things that I said even better when I’m not around to state them anymore.” Her grandma chuckled a little and continued to stroke her hand.

Claire couldn’t find that funny, even though she wanted to laugh.

“Now, I’m not telling you what you need to do with Josiah, but you know he was between a rock and a hard place.

He knew that if I’d wanted you to know, I would have told you.

He also knew that you would want to know.

So he had to make a choice. And he chose to honor the trust that I had placed in him when I’d asked him to take me to the doctor’s. ”

She still felt corrosive anger when she thought about Josiah knowing and not telling her. There was mostly the fact that she felt she deserved to know. Maybe that was pride. Maybe it was pride making her feel like someone should have told her. Who was she to expect anyone to let her know anything?

“Maybe humility is the key to not being offended?” she said, knowing that her grandma was probably the most humble person she knew.

After all, she never insisted that she deserved anything.

She just put her hand in Jesus’s hand and walked softly along beside Him.

And whatever came, she handled it with Jesus by her side.

“I think you might be on the right track with that.”

“Well, maybe I ought to go outside and apologize to Josiah while I’m still thinking I can. I’ve found that the longer I let things go, the harder it is to apologize.”

She thought again about Grace. She really needed to apologize to her, but decades had gone by, and how was she going to start?

She didn’t want to dredge up old things that had been covered over and buried.

Sometimes they hurt worse the second time around.

But sometimes they just lay there and festered.

For her, it was fine—she didn’t care if she ever talked about it again.

But maybe Grace would need to hear her apologize.

Plus, she probably would feel a little bit lighter and less guilty and wouldn’t keep thinking about it if she managed to apologize and get it off her chest.

“I think it would be a good idea. That boy thinks a lot of you, and I could tell it was really upsetting him that there was something between you.”

“I didn’t have any right to get upset. I shouldn’t have. I mean, I would have liked it if you would have told me, but you’re right. He was doing you a favor, and who am I to deserve to have that information anyway?”

Grandma smiled at her, and then she grimaced a little as she shifted. “I think I’m going to go find a pain pill and maybe take a nap.”

“Grandma?”

“Yes?” Her grandma paused as she shifted to get off the bed.

“Have the doctors given you anything for pain?”

“Not yet. I haven’t been in any kind of pain to need anything.

But… Maybe it’s time to make another visit.

They said eventually they would need to give me stronger and stronger pain meds, and then perhaps morphine.

They said that with morphine, the end would not be hard.

I… The one thing I asked when I went was that death be painless. As painless as it can be.”

Claire swallowed. She didn’t want to talk about death. Especially her grandma’s death, but she had to be brave, because Grandma was trusting her with this information. “I can make an appointment if you tell me where the number to your doctor is.”

“I’ll find it when I get downstairs. And the other thing I asked was that I be able to die at home. They said that shouldn’t be a problem. They talked about hospice. Do you have any experience with that?”

“No experience, but I’ve heard of them. I guess the doctor will tell us when it’s time to call them.”

She was surprised she’d found the bravery to say those words. She didn’t want to. She wanted to go bury herself somewhere, where she didn’t have to deal with this. She needed some time to process. Some time to think. And… Maybe a shoulder to cry on.

Josiah came to mind, but then she thought about Grace.

It wasn’t a coincidence that she had met Grace just that morning.

God orchestrated everything, and there was no doubt in her mind that God had brought Grace into her life just when she would need her the most. Except she should have responded to Grace when she had left messages on her phone, reaching out.

Perhaps now Grace would be upset with her and not open to reconciliation.

But if that were the case, it was her own fault.

And she had no one but herself to blame.

“I can help you,” she said as Grandma grimaced again.

“Some days, it’s not bad. I think it was the rain that we had earlier, or maybe the rain that’s coming.”

Claire didn’t say anything. She highly doubted it had anything to do with the rain, but there was no point in arguing with Grandma.

It might’ve been her grandma’s way of thinking that things would get better.

And she supposed that was a positive and healthy way to look at things.

It would at least keep Grandma’s spirits up, and Claire wasn’t going to do anything to dash her hopes.

Maybe, maybe when they went to the doctor, he would be able to tell her that there was still hope that Grandma would pull through.

That she would have lots of pain-free and happy years ahead. She hoped so.