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How Great Thou Art by Elvis Presley was playing. His powerful voice covered up the muffled cries around me and all I could do was smile and look up toward heaven. A familiar voice was saying “Aaaaaasshleeeey” (drawn out in a playful way), and there she was looking down at me! She looked so different, so young and beautiful in her flowery dress. She was so happy, twirling around and giggling… saying my name over and over. I probably looked crazy considering that I was sitting on a stiff wooden church pew right smack in the middle of my mourning family. We had lost the physical presence of my maternal grandmother, my beloved Nanny, and everyone was so sad… except me. Don’t get me wrong, I was sad when she was declining, I was sad when I got the news and I was sad not long before this moment, during the viewing of her body. But now, I was so happy for her… she was finally experiencing the words of that familiar gospel song she loved: “when we all get to heaven...”. She was reunited with the love of her life (my Papa who had gone before her), her body was finally restored to its youth (she had rheumatoid arthritis starting in her 20s) and she sat in the glorious presence of our Lord. And on this day of final goodbyes, she was sharing a glimpse of her transformation with me. *(It should be noted that this is not something I have ever experienced and certainly not at every funeral I have gone to, even when it was people I dearly loved and/or believed to be in heaven.)

Another thing happened right there on that old wooden bench. In some way that I can’t quite recall now, she  impressed upon me to carry out my dreams of becoming a writer. My nanny and I shared many things in common… some I had already given great appreciation for, like the fact that we both loved to read. Our favorites to discuss and share were the novels by Nicholas Sparks, but I do remember others like the yellow book where the little boy visited heaven and The Shack. It became a regular thing for me to read a book and then pass it on to her. I don’t know how much I knew about her love for writing up to this point though. I think I knew she would jot things down and as a teenager I had gifted her with a journal once. But in the days that followed, I realized that she had the same interests and habits as me when it came to writing. We found many writings in her things - short stories, poetry and random journaling. They all exposed so much of her life and her heart. Clearly they were things she had kept hidden and also held very dear. In these moments of reading and discovering, that impression from the funeral home just became more and more clear.

It was 2021, and this would be the year that I dipped my toe back into the world of scholastics with intentions to hone in my writing (I hadn’t written much over the years), but instead I ended up deep in the Bible. Truth be told, this was another longing in my heart that had really started to surface and another area in which I had in common with my Nanny. I always knew she loved Billy Graham because he was always on the television. But when I inherited her books, I found so much more in between Billy Graham and Nicholas Sparks. She had books dating back to her younger years where she was studying very deep seeking to understand, and these books had underlining and highlights and even some scribbled notes. I don’t know if she ever dreamed of being a writer or not, but I know she loved to read, study the Bible and write about the things that were on her mind. If you pull a book off of my shelf, it’s likely highlighted and scribbled in. :)

I set out to find my own path in this expansive world of biblical knowledge, and nearly 4 years later as I told this story, someone said something to the tune of me carrying on her legacy. Now I really get it. Just like my Nanny, I love watching the birds, I love flowers, I love Jesus, and I’m crazy ‘bout Elvis too (anybody else just hear that song in their head?). My Nanny’s dreams were cut short due to her health issues with arthritis. You see, even as a young girl I remember her hands curled in and as a young adult I remember when she could no longer cook easily and I would imagine that writing also became more difficult. She always dreamed of playing the piano but could not, so she bought a fancy keyboard and put me through lessons… something else I wish I’d never stopped. So, as I sit here at my desk writing this and look to my left to see a bookshelf full of books (including some of hers), and a keyboard just beyond that, I smile because I am my Nanny’s granddaughter. Welcome to my journey toward her legacy.

P.S. If you clicked the links, I hope you enjoyed the surprise musical journey. 😁