"Oh, Honey Girl"

I knew that the treasures stored away in the family attic were hardly without webs, and critters, and dust… perhaps that’s putting it nicely. The thing about the treasures in the attic, is that they aren't all just physical dust and decay. Some of these things hold memories of their own and have lived many years to tell a story.

“Dealing with your past” is a spiritual practice. An essential one. I’ve known this. But for a long time, I was confused at what it was supposed to look like. I don’t think it’s uniform for anyone, but of late, it’s surfaced in my life in a very real way.

This could route many ways…and turn to many posts or even a book on mine and my family’s lives. But for this purpose, I’m keeping it to the past couple of weeks, starting with a little context.

My grandma Marilyn, my dad’s mom, was a constant. A daily physical, mental, emotional and spiritual presence in mine and my sister’s lives. While home may have been some chaos, she was always there, with a towel slung over her shoulder and supper going on the stove. She was the world to us.

She taught us to mother and gave us the longing to be that someday for our own kids and grandkids. Many say theirs are the best, but she really was. Her life was not easy, yet she was joy-filled, even amidst trial. The first time she had cancer, she always said it was her grandkids who brought her through. She fought for another day with us. She picked us up from school, like any other day, and helped us out with our daily needs just the same, as if she wasn't enduring a battle of her own. We were too little to know much different.

One day, though, we got a glipse of the reality of that battle that even our young minds could comprehend. We walked into the kitchen and there sat her wig on its stand on the counter. Did we know she wore a wig? Her bald head, a sign of her battle, gleaned with the heat of summer and the stove firing. First, she was embarrassed. She didn’t want us to see her that way. We never had up to that point. But suddenly, instead of shame, the room diverted to laughter, we all found a way to chuckle about finding her in unexpected form. Because that’s just who she was.

I was 16 when the cancer came back. I thought my warrior woman in pink could conquer anything. She could. Until cancer, again. Everywhere. As her body decayed, worse this time, she continued to show up and show the depth of her care. Her life lived for others, for us. Up to her last words, she asked about us and uttered with every gasping breathe how much she loved us. I can’t type this without thinking of those moments. Gosh, I miss her.

I didn’t think I could miss her more. Over ten years later, my soul is discovering a part of her soul I never knew endured this kind of suffering.

Two weeks ago, I was told by my OBGyn PA that I likely have endometriosis or PCOS. Whichever it is, it is one of likely a few culprits behind our nearly two year-and-counting battle with infertility.

Amidst my own difficult battle with its own physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual components, going through my grandma's attic, there was a letter dated May 16, 1960. A single, simple letter holding a glimpse into a heart's gut-wrenching loss. My grandma's loss. A pain she never talked about much, but always carried.

“But my heart is in Ipswich, England. Oh, Honey Girl, I wish I could go over there. I would even sell the house to get my share to get over there to you.”

My great grandmother, Edith, to my beloved grandma, Marilyn, her daughter, from across the ocean just days after she lost her newborn. Grandpa flew home to Iowa to bury David, leaving my grandma, who couldn’t travel with him, still traumatized and medicated from labor and a mother’s worst nightmare. They were awaiting David’s arrival when she wrote this, while grandma, likely grieving unused milk and a swollen abdomen, had no choice but to continue on to attend to her three young children, stationed alone in England where my grandpa moved them with the military.

She had not even seen the face of her poor broken baby’s body, born with a hole in his heart. Their doctor, a friend, sought to spare her the agony. This was not the first turmoil and trauma Edith and her children and her children’s children weathered together. And it would not be the last.

This same day {as the letter}, a lifetime it seems later, my baby sister was born.

Without a doubt, Marilyn knew the grief that time held so long before. She wasn’t the type to forget. She loved us with a fierceness that could not be beat. To have a day so filled with grief become such joy so many years later – we never knew. I wish I could ask her, to grieve a fellow longing mother’s soul with hers. To be comforted knowing her body failed her, too. As it did before and after this terrible loss, suffering her own struggles with what was likely endometriosis that was never diagnosed. Carrying many of the same pains and struggles as mine does now, with loss insurmountable on top of it.

I grieve for her mother’s touch more than ever. I haven’t felt the sooth of her voice in over a decade. But still I feel it, and am more connected to her now than ever.

I cried reading the comfort of a mother’s words, simple black and white on a page. No where near what could be accomplished with a hug or a touch, impossible from across the world. Neither of them knowing that their disconnect would be their great/granddaughters re-connection to them. To the grief of mothers before.

I am not a crier. But today, I wept. Twice. First of my own empty womb. And then of knowing my grandmother’s grief, and feeling her agony even without her words, across ocean, and decades between us.I may not be a mother today, but through generations….

I grieve with them to heal what’s past and pave a road for my granddaughter to someday know my pain not because I’ve passed it, but because we’ve healed it…together.

Be with me, and be with her, that future soul I still only dream of, Great Grandma Edith and Grandma Marilyn. I long for the day I can feel your hugs and wipe away all our tears under Jesus shelter and goodness, forever. Someday.

“Sing, O barren,You who have not borne!Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,You who have not labored with child!For more are the children of the desolateThan the children of the married woman,” says the LORD.”  — Isaiah 54:1

Originally written June 19, 2022