Grandma Smith

I was twelve and I hated penny loafers and I hated church. I don’t know what I hated more; church itself or the fact that my mom made me wear those stupid penny loafers when I went. I hated sitting there for hours on a wooden pew, listening to my dad behind the pulpit talk about things that didn’t make any sense to me. I hated the solemn hymns, the organ accompaniment, the constant business of standing up and sitting down and bowing my head, the long pious prayers, the superficial conversations before and after the service, the impossible expectations of perfection imposed upon me by my parents and the church people, (and God himself apparently), the stigma I lived with at school, and the fact that I was not allowed to go places and do things that other kids my age participated in, but I especially hated the penny-loafers.
She was ninety-two when I first met her. My dad was the new pastor at wood-haven church of god in Hammond, Louisiana and I was the new student in her Sunday school class. I’ll never forget opening the door and walking into her classroom for the first time, and seeing her sitting there, ancient and mystical, glowing from the inside out accentuated by the rays of morning sunshine through the golden, stained glass panes of the window behind her. It was as if I’d walked through an invisible doorway into another dimension. She sat regally behind the table like an angelic mother hen with a cluster of my peers around her with a warm, calm, peaceful smile permanently etched on her countenance. I left my bitterness and pride at the door and reverently took a seat at the table with the other kids. After the introductions and some small talk, a hush fell over the room as she removed a small cylindrical package from her oversized black purse, we all paused in meditation as she one, by one rolled a spearmint cert across the table to each of us with her wrinkled arthritis ridden hands, a weekly communion we observed religiously before she opened the class with a prayer.
She always said that all prayer was, is talking to God, and that’s exactly what she did. She didn’t quote scripture or speak in old English; she simply talked to Jesus as if he was right there. In fact… I think he was. I remember that first Sunday, I looked behind me as she was praying half expecting to see him walking thru the door and pulling up a chair at the table waiting anxiously for his cert. I sensed the presence of God like I had never felt before, like a welcome and honored guest that had come from afar.
Almost two years later I stood by her death-bed, listening to her pray, this time in a language that I did not understand. She lie there flat on her back, unblinking eyes fixated as if staring intently at a spot on the ceiling, mumbling unintelligibly pausing to inhale slowly. She seemed oblivious to my presence as I stood there silently thinking about certs rolling across the table, the smell of the old spice cologne she always wore, and her big tattered bible she always carried, loose pages stained with age, with passages underlined and notes scrawled in the margins. She paused momentarily and after a brief silence, without detouring her heavenward gaze, she whispered my name. “Yes, Grandma Smith?” I answered. “I’ll see you in heaven.” She finally spoke before returning to her prayer. “I’ll be there, Grandma Smith. I’ll be there.” I said. The next morning she went home to be with Jesus.