in-between.

{Grandma Dixon}

{August 15th, 2009}

When I took my hiatus last week, the first thing I did when I arrived homeward, is took a long, hot bath in my mother’s soaker tub. And I bathed every day after in that tub. Oh, the joy.

God bless tubs.

Six days ago, I hugged my ninety-one year-old grandmother's body. It is frail. Fragile, shrinking with age. I mean, the age. Ninety-one years old. My mind cannot comprehend the time.

I brought to her the delicious fruit of my labor – my child – my son. With skin so pure, flawless. He is healthy (thanks be to heaven). Squirmy. Full of giggles. And we (him and I) knelt beside her while she patted his pudgy fingers. We were all in smiles.

What a beautiful sight to behold.
The old.
The young.

And I, so very in-between.

The next morning, Sunday, I soaked in sudsy warmth (my idea of heaven on earth, really). I squinched my toes and held my hands above the water. I watched drops trickle through. I really looked at myself, my entire naked body. And how, usually, my vision is channeled to my visual imperfections. My flattened chest. The scar. The blemishes on my skin that mark how much my belly stretched to house another.

Only, that Sunday morning, I felt grateful for it. It was beautiful to me. It felt beautiful and healthy. It felt whole.

I thought of sweet Stephanie. I thought of her beautiful face and her bravery to share it, and how I had wondered about her scars for so long. I thought of her body and how beautiful her eyes are, even still, after all she’s gone through. How her eyes could be so very lifeless, she could be so broken.

But she’s not. Her body moves. She breathes. She lives. I love her.

Then, came thoughts of my grandma. Thoughts of her life. And how she gave little bodies to seven spirits. How she has endured. How she has lived. How her body aches with age. How she must long, day and night for my grandpa.

How could she not? How is that endured, exactly?

My heart aches even now thinking of Jared someday going where I could not follow. How would I move? And live? And be without him? He makes me me. I am for him. He is mine. We are us together. We are eternal.

Our bodies, and our spirits. And both feel joy and sorrow, health and pain.

For now, one is willing, and one is flawed and weak. Our hope and our faith assure us that both will be perfect, whole, scar-less one day.

Life (in all forms) is rounded. It flows in circular motion.

For me, my sweet little darling has begun it. And I do (and will) grow older. There are crashes, of sorts, and scars to be had. There are times when we are broken. There are losses. But through (and because of) our Savior, we move onward. Until at last, our bodies, fragile and aged, see their earthly end.

Which starts the beginning, really.

Just the beginning.