My grandma was one of the most amazing women who has ever lived on the face of the earth. Before Jesus took her home at the age of 88, she was the most joyful, vibrant, and kind woman you could meet. But her joy wasn’t because everything went right in her life. Her joy came through suffering.
I’m glad my grandmother had a stroke.
A little background. My grandma, Anno Mann Montgomery, suffered from a stroke at age 37. Her oldest child and my mother, Claudia, was 12 years old. For a while, Anno was in a vegetative state. The doctors said she would never talk again, but one day, she did. The family was ecstatic at her first words, none more than her husband, Charlie. He died the next day of a heart attack. Suddenly my mom was left without a father and a mother whose entire right side of her body was paralyzed. I can say that I’m glad my grandmother had a stroke because I didn’t live through the pain and suffering of those times. But I’m sure they were hard. I’m sure that to my mom, my aunt, and my uncle, their entire world was shattered. That even when they managed to hold back the tears, that feeling in the pit of their stomach didn’t go away. I’m sure that when they asked why, there wasn’t a clear answer.
And I’m not sure I have the answer. I didn’t live through it, so I don’t know if what happened down the road redeemed what happened to my mother’s family. I don’t know if it’s up to us to say when somebody else’s suffering is worth it. But I do know what happened next, and if anything, it gives me hope.
Because my grandma had that stroke, I grew up in a home where I saw sacrificial love being lived out every single day. I saw my mom care for Anno in a way that defied the values of our messed up, selfish world. I saw family step in to help when the burden was too great. I learned early on that what makes someone valuable isn’t what they contribute to society. My grandma received social security and required constant care. If all you were looking at was the bottom line, Anno was a burden to society.
Fortunately, that’s not how God sees our worth. I think He maybe sees us something like this. Like I see her.
I see her as a woman who loved. Oh my goodness did she love. And laugh. And cry. And smile. Here was a woman who had lost so much, but chose to focus on what she had found. Children and grandchildren who helped care for her. Friends who waited to see her at church each week just to bend down to her wheelchair and give her a hug, and to see her smile from the joy that it brought her. Sometimes I wondered where all that joy came from, but the answer was pretty clear. She wasn’t just reading that massive bible that she would spread out on the dining room table. She soaked it up. Every word.
And when things started getting worse that last year, she didn’t see the weekly hospice chaplain visits as a grim reminder. No, she welcomed him with a warm smile each week and listened to him sing hymns. She couldn’t hear him, but his singing still brought her joy. I can still hear his deep, booming voice drowning out her out-of-tune yet enthusiastic attempts to sing along.
It was one of my last memories with her, but it’s one of the most vivid. I’m tearing up right now as I write this, and I’m not even sure why. It was just a conversation in the kitchen. I can’t remember how it started, but somehow we got to the topic of why she was so at peace with knowing that the next time she laid down very well could be her last. She said it was Jesus. She knew that she was loved by her saviour, and that’s all she needed. But then she started to reflect on how there were so many around the world who had never heard about Him. She started to choke up. She gestured down at her frail, broken body and said “and I can’t tell them”.
So many things that went wrong in this woman’s life, and one of the only things I’ve ever seen her cry about was that her disabilities kept her from telling more people about Jesus.
She died on June 20, 2012. My 21st birthday. I’m glad it was on that day, because now every year I’m reminded of the hope she had as she stared death in the face, and knew that it held no power over her. I’m reminded of a spiritual birthday that same day, because someone wanted that same hope. At her funeral, the hundreds of people who gathered to bid farewell to this beautiful daughter of Christ got to hear not only her story, but the greatest story. She left behind a legacy of faith. A legacy of joy. A family that despite all our shortcomings and faults, loves each other.
Would all this have happened if she didn’t have that stroke? I don’t know, maybe. But it did happen, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Whatever you’re going through right now may seem impossible. You may think that you’ll never conquer the pain, or grief. This isn’t a trite message to look for the silver lining. This isn’t even to say that all the suffering is worth it. I don’t know if it is.
But I’m begging you, please, stick with it. It may be half a century down the road, but you might change someone’s entire life.
She changed mine.
