An Honest Eulogy

Several years ago, a friend of mine posted the most honest eulogy I’d ever read, after their relative—someone who had lived a hard life and had inflicted countless traumas on family members—died. I remember being grateful for my friend’s honesty about their loved one. It is important to tell the truth about a person’s life, I thought, even when the truth does not feel good, even when the truth is not easy.

So when my grandma died this spring, I thought of my friend’s Facebook post, and then I tried to think of one fond memory of my grandma. It took a while to wade through the missed and ruined holidays, the countless injuries and lies inflicted on my mom and her siblings, and my own disappointment over the distance between us, which, over time, faded my demeanor toward her into a cool neutrality.

But then I found some things: a jewelry box she bought me. The way she sang along to oldies in the car. Her habit of buying clothing from the dollar store to pass along to me. My grandma wasn’t the soft person you ran to when you were sad. When she wasn’t absent, she was quietly present, never imposing, an observer at a family gathering. Her absence was frequently noticed more than her presence.

It grieves me that relief was my first emotion when I learned she had died. Finally, the suffering ends, her own and others who suffered alongside her as she battled a life of alcoholism, addiction, physical and mental illness, chronic pain, cancer, unresolved grief, and her own silent traumas we’ll probably never know. The storms of my grandma’s life rocked the foundations of our lives, disrupted holidays, ended vacations early, and occasionally broke our hearts.

These are the hard truths of my grandmother’s life.

But she is my family. She is my grandma who spent her entire adult life being cleaned up after by her own child, my mother. We all come from someone, carry someone else’s baggage and wounds forward into our own adult lives. If we’re lucky, we’re given the space to process and reflect on those wounds to try our best to end the cycles of abuse and trauma.

These are the truths. The resurrection moments of our Easter Sundays are born out of the ashes of our Good Fridays.

My grandma felt that her life was hard and unfair. It was hard. It feels unfair, the suffering, the pain, the grief. We don’t wish these things on anyone else. When life is hard and feels unfair, it is difficult to see the good, the real, the true, and the beautiful that may be right in front of you. There have been so many times I wished that my grandma could look beyond her pain and see what I have seen in our family: grace. Amazing grace. Grace is an unwarranted gift, an unearned blessing of love no matter what. My grandma’s life was actually quite full of it, as are all of our lives, if we have eyes to see.

In the gospels Jesus says you can tell a good tree and a bad tree by its fruit. Despite the hardships of my grandma’s life, just look at the fruit. After decades of alcoholism and addiction, my grandma’s four children never abandoned her. All four children broke the cycles of alcoholism and addiction. They made a way out from under the burdens they could have inherited. All four of them married good people that have helped them make beautiful and safe homes for their families. Those homes overflow with love. And how many grandchildren? Ten, plus their spouses? And how many great-grandchildren? Twelve, I think?

There’s a place in the gospels when Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. They were worried about the things He was saying about Himself. Sometimes our family members are the ones who understand us the least. We’re too close to their humanity; we know too much about their past to see the reality of the glory shining in their lives.

I think in many ways my grandmother was blinded by the hurt and the pain in her life so that she could not see. But Jesus heals the blind. Jesus heals the hurting. I believe that when my grandma crossed over to the Great Beyond, scales fell from her eyes, pain was soothed. For the first time ever, she could finally see her world as it really is: a great big, beautiful gift of love and grace.

Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:8–12,

“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”

None of us can fully see this great big, beautiful gift of love and grace right now, but someday, someday God will open each of our eyes, and we will see. My grandmother fully knows now. My grandmother can see fully, face to face, the glory and love of the Father, the love that was poured out for her throughout her life. I wish she could have seen it better and lived into it more while she was here.

It’s my prayer for myself and my family, that we can see it and experience it well. Jesus can give us eyes to see, too, eyes to see the hurt and brokenness in the people we come from and still love them anyway. My mom once said she had no idea what she was doing as a mother herself, so she decided that whatever her mom did, she would do the exact opposite and probably be just fine. She has done more than just fine—she has been a beacon of hope, a touchstone of unfailing love, a devoted and patient daughter, and a strong, soft place to land for her children and grandchildren.

Just look at God making something good rise from the ashes. Just look at God making all things new, all things whole, until completeness comes.

–Written by Sarah M. Wells. Used by permission from the author.