What's In Your Pocket?

My grandmother always carried with her, on her person, hidden away from sight, not concealed weapons, but resources in a way that no one would know, until a moment of need came to the surface. 

I was often the recipient of what she had saved up, kept secret, and made ready.  Small surprises appeared suddenly at the right moment, a homemade cookie seemingly out of thin air on a weary journey or a discouraging day, Chicklets or a crayon or two out of her pocket in the middle of a way-too-long sermon, or from the vast depths of her little sewing closet, a tiny trinket or card game.  Little treasures were waiting, patiently waiting, packed up, ready to go, just below the surface, and always, it seemed, just in time.

When my grandmother passed away, quite suddenly of a heart attack, it was not like she just disappeared, but her passing gave every appearance that she had departed for a long-anticipated party.  “You know where I’m going, and I’m not going to be hurting anymore,” she often reminded me. 

She was a stay-at-home grandmother, living with our family through my first sixteen years.  She was mostly restricted to our house due to her 45-year stint with rheumatoid arthritis.  She would laugh out loud –and reprimand me even now --at the thought of “limitations.”  She knew no boundaries.  Out of a few cans in the pantry, she created feasts for the family or unexpected guests.  Wherever we moved, barren soil laden with weeds and large rocks were simply her palette for a garden, resplendent with color.  She rejoiced over a few scraps of material, a worn out dress or an outgrown pair of slacks, nothing but nothing went to waste.  Nothing was insignificant in her eyes.  No one was insignificant in her heart. No one.

Even me.

No matter what she was doing, how busy her day, she always made time for me.  After all these decades later, that is still a treasure in my heart.  I would creep in and sit on the small chaise lounge in the corner of her bedroom.  Sometimes we talked, mostly I listened, but always we just enjoyed being together in those little pockets of time. She had a joy about her that had nothing at all to do with circumstances, either favorable or difficult, but on hope in God on whom she had staked her life. 

Of all people, she knew full well the definition of difficult.  But her creativity thrived on the impossible.  What can I do with that?  Even intense arthritic pain that kept her from sleeping didn’t sway her.  I often awoke in the middle of the night to the smell of brownies baking in the oven, or to the hum of her sewing machine.  “No sense wasting time just lying there awake,” she would say. Sometimes I thought, even then, the harder things became, only deepened God’s strength in her.

When she passed away, my mom began tearing apart my grandmother’s old woolen coats.  I was not surprised.  I knew what she was doing, but I thought I was the only one who knew. My grandmother had sewn in the hems of her coats, out of sight, a five or ten dollar bill, “for car fare,” she told me, “if I ever need it, just in case I am ever stuck somewhere…or my purse is taken.”

As far as I know, she never needed it for such an occasion, but she was prepared.  And as I suspect now, that money wasn’t about her after all.  She was equipped to help someone else in time of need.  I wouldn’t put that past her.  She saw life differently, she saw others differently, she saw needs of which no one was ever aware, and she was ready to do something about them.

It was not just a few dollar bills stashed away, sewn in hems and pinned in pockets, but her generous and loving heart, quietly changing with the love of God, her little corner of the universe. 

Nothing insignificant at all.

 

…and find grace to help

        in time of need.

 

                Hebrews 4. 16