Past and Future

Some rambling thoughts on life and death

I buried my grandmother this week. I mean this both metaphorically and literally. She passed a week ago today, the funeral was yesterday morning, and my uncle and I shoveled the dirt back into the grave when she was buried.

Grandma was born in 1928, grew up during the Great Depression, and lived most of her life in rural Iowa. She met my grandfather at a dance in June 1949, and they were married in January 1950. They were married for 55 years until grandpa passed in 2005. They had eight daughters and three sons, plus one more son who was stillborn. My mother was the middle of the eleven kids. Grandma was 97 years old when she passed, and right up to the end she never had any major health problems. The only times she was ever in a hospital were for childbirth, and her own death via heart failure. 97 years is a good long run.

The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

— Psalm 90:10 (KJV)

As far as I’m concerned, anything I get after my threescore and ten is gravy, and that goes double for anything after fourscore. Grandma got to live another whole seventeen years after that. Since I’m already using my real name and don’t really worry about opsec, you can read her full obituary here if you’re interested.

One highlight from the obituary is the fact that grandma had no less than 22 grandchildren, which means I grew up with a lot of cousins. 20 cousins to be exact, since my brother and I account for two of those 22 grandchildren. And that’s not even counting my dad’s side of the family, which is smaller, but still pretty big by today’s standards. Grandma also had 10 great-grandchildren (with more on the way, including another one of my own kids due this spring), and even one great-great-grandchild already. I have a first cousin once removed (child of my first cousin) who is only a couple years younger than me, even though he is technically of the same generation as my 2-year-old daughter.

Family gatherings were kind of like an assembly of a small town, and were always a little confusing. You knew everybody there was related somehow, either by blood or marriage, but it wasn’t always easy to remember who everyone was and what the relationships were. There were a few cousins, aunts, and uncles that I knew pretty well and always hung out with, but it seemed there were always at least a couple new people at any given gathering who I didn’t know from Adam. The gathering for grandma’s funeral was no exception.

Our family seems to have gotten reamed pretty hard by the boomer-era cultural hollowing-out of America, and there’s been a lot of scattering. There’s never been a time since I’ve been alive when the family was all together in one place, or even mostly together in one place. Not even a large minority, in fact. Everybody scattered from Iowa, and today we have members in places as far-flung as Hawaii, California, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Florida, Tennessee, and probably a dozen other states I’ve forgotten about. We got together for certain holidays, anniversaries, weddings, funerals, and other major life events, but mostly didn’t see each other outside of that except in small groups. I supposed a little bit of cliquishness isn’t too surprising in such a large family.

Another interesting thing about such a big family is seeing the range of life outcomes that people end up with. I suppose every family has a range, but it’s magnified in such a big family. Grandma’s funeral was the biggest family gathering in 20 years or more, probably since grandpa’s funeral in 2005 when I was only 11 years old. I have cousins my age who I have not seen since 2005, so we’ve grown up in each other’s absence, some of us keeping in touch only through social media off and on. Out of respect for other people’s privacy I won’t go into any details, but through catching up this week I’ve found that some of us seem to be doing pretty well for ourselves, while others have some pretty serious issues. Again, probably not too surprising with a sample size this large. You win some, you lose some.

The last time I saw grandma before she passed was maybe a year and a half ago. My wife and I took the trip from Oklahoma up to Iowa so she could meet my daughter, who was maybe about 9 months old at the time. She had lots of visitors in her last few years of life, mostly her kids coming to check on her, especially one son who was taking care of her basically full-time. One thing I heard at the funeral gathering was that for months after our visit, she was talking to everyone who came to see her about our little daughter and what a happy baby she was. I pray that when I’m that age, my grandkids will be bringing their kids to meet me.

Anyway, I guess I should come to the point of this ramble, if there is one. Grandma was my last surviving grandparent, so her passing marks the ending of a generation of my particular family line (although she and grandpa actually both still have surviving siblings—longevity runs in the family). The ending of an era such as this naturally prompts some reflection. For whatever stupid reason, I was reminded of that silly line from that terribly stupid Star Wars sequel: “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.”

I know, it’s a stupid movie, and I don’t know about killing the past, but there is a certain sense in which the past has to die for the sake of the future. The old ones die, the new ones are born, and the world marches on. It’s, like, the circle of life, bro. One day, God willing, I’ll be 97 years old and my kids will be taking care of me.

This trip to Iowa was something of a farewell for me, since I likely won’t have a reason to go up there again for the foreseeable future now that grandma is gone. It brought up a lot of childhood memories of holidays and other gatherings on grandpa and grandma’s farm. And of course, catching up with cousins who I haven’t seen for 20 years and probably won’t see again for another 20 years.

Sometimes, hearing the stories of grandma’s childhood, or even my mom’s childhood, I get nostalgic for an era I never even experienced. An era without the internet or AI, before America was flooded with infinity Pajeets and Somalians, when everyone could still comfortably rest in the shade of the post-WWII consensus myth. Of course, that era had more than its fair share of issues too, as the spiritual gutting of the boomer generation can attest to.

But that past is dead. Even the 1990s era of my own childhood is dead. I didn’t kill it; it’s just dead because all things on this mortal plane die.

One thing that strikes me about this side of my family is that there’s been a bit of a bottleneck. Grandma was the middle of seventeen (yes, you read that right) children. Of course, back in her day a lot more kids didn’t survive childhood. One of her brothers died of pneumonia as a teenager because they didn’t have penicillin yet. I can’t remember offhand how many siblings grandpa had, but I know it was also a lot. Then they had 12 of their own. Then in the next generation, the boomers, I’m pretty sure none of grandma’s kids had more than four kids of their own. Some of them never had kids at all. My mom had two. Among my cousins, some of them have kids of their own but a lot of them are genetic dead ends. Some of them don’t have kids yet, but still have hope.

This all means that my kids won’t grow up in a big extended family with lots of cousins their age running around. My wife and I are the first of any of our siblings to have kids, so our kids don’t have any first cousins yet (although they do have some second cousins). We’re also both the oldest children in our respective families, so there’s still hope for having some first cousins, but it’s limited since she only has two brothers and I have one.

Anyway, that past is dead. My wife asked me this week who the new patriarch or matriarch of the family is now that grandma is gone, and I said there probably isn’t one really. The family crown is waiting to be picked up. Certainly none of the boomers are going to take it.

Grandma with her great-granddaughter. Passing of the torch.

I told my wife it’ll be us. We’ll be the ones picking up the crown and hosting the small-town-sized family gatherings 50 years from now. We’ve already started. The past can’t be re-created, or held onto for too long. The spark can only be carried forward, with the memory of the past, and the hope of the resurrection to life eternal.

O God of spirits and of all flesh, Who hast trampled down death and made powerless the devil and given life to Thy world: Give rest also to the soul of Thy departed handmaiden, Theresa, in a place of brightness, a place of verdure, a place of repose, whence all sickness, sorrow, and sighing have fled away. Pardon every sin which she has committed, whether by word or deed or thought; for Thou art good and lovest mankind, and there is no man who liveth and sinneth not, for Thou alone art without sin, and Thy righteousness is to all eternity, and Thy word is truth.

For Thou art the Resurrection and the Life and the Repose of Thy departed servants, O Christ our God, and unto Thee we ascribe glory, together with Thine unoriginate Father and Thine all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Memory eternal