Last night, I had an epiphany and yet another piece of my puzzle fell into place. I wasn’t as geographically close to her as most of my cousins were, but have always been extremely fond of her. You see, although I was raised Roman Catholic, it was SHE, my maternal grandmother, who first taught me about Jesus and that I could have a personal relationship with Him no matter what “church” I either did or didn’t dwell in, and that “just because you can’t see Him, it doesn’t mean He isn’t there.”

It was SHE who planted that mustard seed of faith in my psyche so many years ago. It was SHE who taught me that it doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks of you, because at the end of the day, it’s between you, yourself, and the Lord to be accountable (although years of self-torture and cowering to “what people would think” occurred before I began to practice this preaching).

It was SHE who taught me that just because a woman is divorced it doesn’t mean God won’t forgive her or that she has to accept the accompanying guilt and shame that society and even her own family may burden her with.

It was SHE who taught me that it’s not the “things” in our lives that matter most, it’s what we learn from our lessons and mistakes, our faith in God, and the people we love, trust and walk beside in our journeys that do.

It was SHE who taught me about living with only my truest convictions … SHE who embodied this feisty, yet powerful cloth of grace from which I’m woven … and SHE who began my greatest punctuation lesson of all!

O-M-SHE!

THAT’S where I got it!

Grandma, my dear angel, for as long as I am lucky enough to be alive here, you will always be that bowl of lumpy Cream Of Wheat I eat on a crisp, cool winter’s morning with my burnt tortillas and hot cup of coffee.

Never shall I part with this “seen better days” Scrabble game of ours that we played together countless of hours. Dare I say that literally cannot wait to have my own grandbabies sitting at that precious game board one day with their “Crazy Grandma Cat” so I can tell them all about YOU, the EPIC legacy YOU left behind, and how it was YOU who made some of the most beautiful brushstrokes across this masterpiece I’ll be working on until that beautiful moment I finally get to cross to The Brighter Side Of Grey and see you again.

Now that I think of it, I just realized that when I started this post, I opened with the exact wrong words. What I should have said was:

Last night I had an epiphany and yet another beautiful TILE fell safely into place in the Scrabble board that is my life!

Here’s hoping you’ll be standing there with my Butterfly, my fallen king, and the many others I’ve lost along the way as the steel magnolia you’ll always be as in my mind, “always bending, but never breaking“, just like the apostrophe you helped me become. It’s okay, Grandma. We’re ready for you to take this game to the next, BEST level of all! It’s unbearable watching you suffer this way, so, to you I sing the Anthem Of The Angels:

White walls surround us. No light will touch your face again. Rain taps the window as we sleep among the dead. Days go on forever, but I have not left your side. We can chase the dark together. If you go then so will I. There is nothing left of you. I can see it in your eyes. Sing the anthem of the angels and say the last goodbye. Cold light above us. Hope fills the heart and fades away. Skin white as winter, as the sky returns to gray. Days go on forever, but I have not left your side. We can chase the dark together, if you go then so will I.

{Breaking Benjamin}