Grandma

My grandma died this week. That is the last of my grandparents. I’ve been dealing with depression, or perhaps the weighty somberness of reality, which is a strange thing to encounter before a wedding.

I sat on a packed Trimet today, and a man boarded who although poor by appearance seemed extremely normal for Portland. His clothes were a simple brown hoody, jeans, and a pair of sneakers that Fr Peter could wear. His demeanor was subdued, but behind his bearded face was a confidence, maybe a determination even, of a simple hope, a demeanor that carried a serene clarity which the rest of us lacked.

But then, after he had sat down, people began leaving. Understandably. See, he stank. Not a little. This was the putridness yelled in The Princess Bride by the hag. It made me feel sick, and it coated the train car.

The man knew. He knew. But what could he do? This was his state in life. An apologetic sheen lightly reflected on his dusty face, but he remained sat and still seemed to me the most normal, the most at peace, of anyone in transit.

It occurred to me then that this was Christ. He seemed to me a monk of this world, wandering intently as the wise do. I cannot help but wonder that in the face of all goodness, I am that putrid stench. I am the inverse of that man. I am outwardly clean but inwardly rotting with the smell of death and hiding my anxious broken state.

And then, the man left. The realization of who I am in the face of God strangely left me at peace: my brokenness and rotting flesh does not drive Christ away. He is not afraid to embrace me and call me his own, to be my kin and defend me to this world. He is not bothered by the stench. A dab of Holy Water is all that is needed to cleanse the soul, because there is power in the blood, a deeper, cleaner, living earth than the dead dust to which we return. The “semper reformanda” motto is not for others, it is for me.

May my grandma rest in peace.