Grandma Mary the Deva

My husband got back from Phoenix today. His grandmother passed away and he went to support his mom and the rest of the family during the preparations for the memorial service (and the giant party afterward). He shared with me a little of what he had talked about at the service, when everyone took turns talking about Mary and what she had meant to them.  He basically said that his Grandma had taught him how to grow older without being old.  How when he had visited his grandparents as a teenager and saw them in their square dancing get ups that he thought they were total dorks, but that he realized now how that was just one of many interests that kept them young at heart.  She was an artist and a crafter, a dancer, a teacher. She had so many friends that the center at the mobile home park where they held the service was over flowing with people. She followed the Phoenix Coyotes and went to basketball games, art exhibits, museums, concerts - in the later years she dragged an oxygen tank along with her and stopped for kidney dialyses along the way.  Before she got cancer, she told me she hoped to visit China soon. She didn't make it, but I'm sure her spirit hovered somewhere over the great wall before passing into the All That Is.

A few years ago, people would explain to me how Grandma Mary wasn't your typical Grandma. She didn't cuddle you in blankets and make you cookies. She was a horrible cook. She sent you awful, cheap Christmas presents and usually forgot your birthday. She was hardly ever around and didn't actually know her grandchildren that well until they became adults and got more interesting.  Funny that we didn't understand her lack of desire to live up to the stereotype but now that she's gone from the here and now, we all want to be her. She lived according to her terms, practiced her own beliefs and held to her own truths. She lived her own life, and no one else's.

Grandma Mary was a Deva.  She knew that the way to best serve was to follow her own bliss. I think it didn't occur to her that the rest of us might not be doing the same thing. So, she didn't make cookies or do typical grandma things.  In the end, she taught us by example exactly what we needed to learn. How to live balls out and never look back with regret.

She taught us how to grow older without being old. Thanks for the lesson in Deva-hood Mary. You rock.

Have the Reddest Day Ever!

In Grace,

Kell