Pilgrimage

My first grandchild, Lucy Elizabeth, was born in 2006.

The unbelievable joy! The indescribable pride! The absolute delight and thrill that this birth brought to me was more than words can cover. This child was more beautiful than any I had seen before and her presence was embedded in my heart. What is it about a grandchild that has that power?

Is it the ‘continuance of us assured’ that is the thrill? Is it the attachment to their parents? Is it that they actually ARE ‘all that’?

As I gazed on her angelic countenance, I felt ‘visited by God’. I knew that God was saying things to me and they were good.

All of this, for me, does not even address the amazingness of this next part of the story.

My father, father of one daughter, had just had his first great-grandchild when Lucy was born. I, of course, called my parents to let them know when she had arrived. I am certain that my voice overflowed with the sweet refrain that bordered on worship as I told them about her.

It wasn’t long before my dad had decided that he was coming out to see his first great-grandchild. He was seventy-seven years old. I can’t remember if he had been diagnosed at this time with Alzheimer’s, but I knew that to travel by himself to California from Louisiana was a major feat. My mom would not come with him and she wouldn’t let him drive alone, so he decided to come by bus.

I was so happy to have him come to visit; even happier was I to share my granddaughter with him.

He arrived on my doorstep after a long journey. He was weary but excited to go and meet Lucy and to congratulate Jesse, his grand daughter, her mama.

That moment that he sat in the rocking chair in Jesse’s house and held little Lucy was powerful and precious. He sat for a long time and rocked her, He sang to her and whispered into her ears. He gazed into her eyes and spoke blessing and life to her. I am certain whatever he said, she remembers.

The California visit was not long. I believe he was at our house no more than a week. I drove him down to the bus station downtown and helped him with his too heavy suitcase. I watched as he stumbled and couldn’t hear and didn’t understand the directions of the grumpy bus people. I worried myself silly as I waited to be sure he was okay, realizing I had to let him go on his own terms as he had wanted.

That was sixteen years ago.

Today, as I was going through papers in my parents’ house, I found an essay he had written about his travel to California on ‘a pilgrimage’.

I had no idea of anything.

He had been fasting. He had taken no nourishment on his journey, drunk very little water, and had been praying the whole way for the people around him, for his country, for the governmental authorities, for the church, for the land, for his family. I knew that he had eaten only lightly at my house and would not eat the steak at the restaurant when he took us out for a celebration.

His essay described the people he met, the needs he saw, the depths of what he felt as he met his great-granddaughter and saw his ‘little’ granddaughter as a mother.

The tears fall freely as I read his words.

What this journey represented to me was an undying and faithful love and devotion that my father had for his family. His willingness to travel alone, sixteen hundred miles, in a state of probable confusion and inability, without eating, to meet his first great-grand child and bless his granddaughter and daughter with love and support was a rare treasure and gift indeed! The sacrifice!

I am thanking God, my Father, for the example that my earthly father has set for his family. This man was bigger than life.

I have been a blessed woman to have been given such abounding love!

"As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love." -Jeremiah 31:3

"I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you." -1 Corinthians 13:7