From Grief to Gratitude, (From Happy Memories to Epiphanies)

                                        For My Grandmother, Ethelwynne Linn

"That I may be filled with joy,when I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am persuaded is in you also." 2 Timothy 1:4 -5

(My small self on the left, defiant in my underpants, and Grandmother, praying for me on the right with Dad and Grandad ) 

I had my grandchildren over one day to visit and the boys took off, as boys will do to go down and play in the stream that runs in front of my house.  To get there, you have to traverse a steep hill full of cactus and trees with thorns.  I have many times had to pick cactus needles out of the neighbor kids and my grand children. On this particular day, however, Hannah, my grand daughter was with us.  She was only two years old at the time, and far too little to traverse the hillside, the cactus and the stream.  I told her she could not go down with the boys.

I went about my business, thinking telling her would do the trick, but when I looked up, there she was halfway down the hill, headed right into a thick batch of cactus.  In terror, I got up, ran down the hill to circumvent her path, and yelled at her to stop.  “Hannah, go back up the hill! “I shouted.   And then an epiphany occurred for me, as I watched her put her little hand on her hip, wiggle her shoulders, shake her head and respond to me, just as loudly, “No!”  She continued through the cactus patch, without getting one scratch, right down to the stream. 

The epiphany was this. Here was a little girl, who had an idea, and would not be thwarted from it.  She is just as I was at her age.  Some things are inherent.  Like stubborn wills. 

My Grandmother Linn was a stern woman, with very particular ideas about how little girls should act and dress.  She came from that generation of women who were elegant and tasteful.  She was blessed with one grand daughter who was born to be a tomboy.  I say blessed, because I cannot think of another term that she would have used tastefully to describe the trauma I put her through when I went to live with her and Grandad just before and shortly after my Mama passed away.  I say shortly because within eight months, she also went to be with the Lord.  I often wonder if the stress of having a tomboy in the household caused her to give up on living.

One particular incident will forever stick in my mind.  She was doing the dishes, with me standing beside her on the little stool, impatiently waiting for the next dish.  I must have been eyeing the great outdoors through the window, and she noticed that I was not paying attention to my chore of drying the dishes.  So graciously, she told me, “Why don’t you go outside and play for a little while?”  In truth, she might have just wanted to get things done quicker, without me to slow the process down.  I have to hand it to her, she knew what I wanted. 

I was joyous!  I had so wanted to be free, outside running around, and so out the back door I went, and straight up the big Russian olive tree that was just outside the door.  I pulled my dress up to get a better grip on the trunk and the branches and made it all the way to the top.  I was ecstatic looking out over the farm.  I could see my Grandad working in the garden, the barns, the chickens, the neighbor’s house and barns, and even a little glimpse of my grandmother’s face through the corner of the kitchen window.  And then Grandmother came out to call for me.  What did I do?  Nothing.  I just sat up there looking down at her.  As she became frantic, calling me and calling me, I repositioned myself to get a better grip on my branch, and she looked up.  The look on that poor woman’s face was priceless.  If white people could turn any whiter, well let us just say she turned nearly transparent.  And she called frantically for my Grandad.  I watched as he walked in from the garden, asking her what was so wrong.  She pointed up at me, and said, “Susan is up in that tree!”  He scratched his head for a minute, looked up at me, and said, “You ok, girl?”  I nodded in assent, and tenaciously held on to my branch.  Problem solved from his perspective.  He looked at grandmother and said, “She will come down when she gets hungry.”  It was nearly dark when I did come down, but she greeted me with happy arms and a kiss.  I never did figure that one out.  I guess she should have punished me, according to her standards, but she never did. I think she thought her disapproval of my choices was punishment enough.   

It was only many years after she was gone, that I realized how much I could be like her, and found that my sense of adventure, and my willingness to put myself at risk to achieve that adventure where inherited from the one person I always believed to be the most careful.

It was within her diaries that I found this information. Those diaries that ran over the course of many years dated 1912 when she was 26 years old to the date of her death in 1960 when she was 74 years old.  They speak of everyday life, but I found something far more interesting than her genealogic research and her detailed documentation.  On the pages of those diaries lay the record, in her own hand, of a woman who rode coast to coast on horseback alone. This at a time that women did not do these things.  I find a woman who picketed for the Suffragette movement, that I would have the right to vote.  I find a woman who was fearless in her pursuit of knowledge.  Most importantly, I find a woman who trusted God for all of her days. For running through and through those writings, she declared her love of God and her pursuit of Heaven.  

I know my Hannah has definitely inherited the Scot genes of persistence, stubborn defiance and indomitable will.  I hope she also inherits a love for Jesus, and a pursuit of His heart, that I received so graciously from my Grandmother. I did not see this in her life, most likely because I was too young to notice.  But there in her writing, in her scrap books, in her little notes on items, I found her profound love for Jesus!