on staying young

Gramma Katie told me, as I was getting set to leave for college, "Never grow up." For twenty years or so, I have interpreted that to mean I shouldn't get "old:" dull, boring, complacent, crotchety. Aging we cannot help, and to a certain extent, major health concerns related to that number and our genetics are out of our control. As a result, I've worked toward a balance between the maturity necessary to fulfill my obligations, and the fun needed to keep me young.

However, the other day, I read this:

Even amongst the poor, while a child is still small, he is given what is necessary; but, once he is grown up, his father wil no longer feed him, and tells him to seek work and support himself. Well, it was to avoid hearing this, that I have never wished to grow up, for I feel incapable of earning my livelihood, which is Life Eternal. (St. Therese of Lisieux, The story of a soul: the Autobiography of The Little Flower. Kindle edition, Location 2770)

Sitting at the table in the Bistro, I suddenly saw my dear Gramma Katie's smile--reaching all the way to her hairline!--and wondered. She was a spiritual woman herself, quietly observing fasts and holy days, and walking the few blocks to Church for morning Mass more often than I ever considered (as a child and teenager) that I would. She told me once that if at morning Mass she learned there would be a funeral, she would often stay, just to keep the mourners company. Then she winked at me and said that she'd also happily enjoy a slice of cake! (These funerals were mostly people she'd never met personally, but for whom she'd prayed, as members of the parish. She enjoyed the funeral Masses as much as the luncheons that followed!)*

I know that Gramma Katie was a reader, and a lover of art, too. And learning. Part of the advice she had given me, I always believed, was related to that willingness and desire to learn keeping the mind and soul young. But the moment I saw her face superimposed on Soeur Therese's words, I wondered if there was far more to the tidbit she was offering. As a teenager, with my life laid out before me in all it's possibilities, had I missed the greater offering of her experience? Was she offering me spiritual advice that it has taken me another lifetime to even touch upon? Could she have been offering me something to hold onto to carry my faith with me as I traveled on my faith journey.

Did she, in her own 'little' way, plant that mustard seed?

My favorite Bible story has always been Matthew 19:13-15. The one where Jesus says to let the children come to Him. It's just three short verses, but when I was a kid, I had a picture book [when I was a kid--haha....the book still sits on the shelf by my bed!] of the story, and I had my parents read it to me again and again, until I could read it myself. All this time, I've honestly thought He literally meant "children." A few months ago, at Faith Matters, in a discussion about Mary, I made the personal connection to "being as children."

Learning is a beautiful and glorious thing, and making connections to one's own life and experience is the most wondrous of all! Thank you, Gramma Katie, for your love and wisdom, that you still share with me 25 years later.