
It was just three of us sitting at the fire Wednesday night. Luke’s friends on their way back to the city, and parents savoring a few more minutes with an adulting boy. Clouds and mist concealed the setting sun, but not the evening glow of dusk over water. My favorite hour at the lake. Luke’s lanky frame straddled an old bench, intended for the dock, long left to rust in the lakeside brush. And it’s from there he asked his cheeky question. The one about moms and is there some kind of convention where you all get together to discuss potential dangers?
Sassy kid.
We’d been each of us toasting one last marshmallow and Luke caught his on fire. He’d flung that flaming stick to blow it out and I unwisely repeated something I’d heard someone say about the dangers of fiery mallows, and of course I knew as soon as I said it…
Oh shucks. First a mom and now a grandma, and it’s the very thing I’ve been pondering these past few weeks. Thinking about Maisy and who-knows-how-many potential grands, and me not just a nana, but a teacher at heart. And I don’t want to ruin it. Don’t want to lose this chance to pass on wisdom and all that goes with it, and yet I have this feeling. It’s not so easy as one might think.
Earlier Wednesday on our way to the lake we’d had this discussion. Luke talking about tendencies of the more mature generations, and he warns his dad to avoid being a certain kind of old man. You know. The world is ending and everything’s evil under the sun. And I admit, too, my aversion to the stereotypical older female. Pick-a-little, talk-a-little, cheep cheep cheep… to quote a ditty from a classic song.
And then Luke said something else, and I think this time he nailed it. He talked about his Pop, and how he always repeats a particular story. Not a story about political figures or the state of the world, but one where he tells of his own beginning. How as a young man God captured his heart through a church and girl. He was living out east, going to school, I think. And this guy invited him to attend a service on a Sunday morning, and it was the last thing I wanted to do but I couldn’t say no. Which is how he found Jesus, or Jesus found him, and either way, it changed the whole thing. So he writes this letter to a gal back home who’s been waiting for God to save the boy, and of course the girl is Grammy. And this becomes the rest of the story, our story, too, and Luke’s.
And then it was yesterday after church when we loaded Jeep and trailer and Luke’s old Mazda, moving day and Iowa bound. Our boy set out first, charting the course, his dad and I trailing a few miles behind. And right out of the gate Kyle starts talking about the morning sermon, and his own salvation, and I think I’ve known God since the day I was born. I remind him of Luke and how these are the stories we need to grow old telling. Our kids need to hear them and the grandkids, too. And we’ve got four hours to kill before Luke’s apartment, so I suggest we practice. If we tell them enough maybe they’ll stick when our memories start fading.
I fell in love with Jesus the summer I was twelve…
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