Nan

My Nan was a good person with a huge heart, but don’t make her pick you up from school. She was my first experience with religion on a personal, deeper level. I would peek through the crack in her door and watch her as she prayed the rosary. With her eyes closed, she would reverently stroke the beads in her fingers one by one. The words that came from her lips were not mechanical but bathed in love. I don’t think she ever knew I was there, silently and respectfully in the shadows filled with awe and wonder. This was my experience of the word “holy”.

To go in my Nan’s room was not just taking your life in your own hands but like walking into a shrine. Her walls and dressers were filled with crosses and pictures of Jesus; Mary, the Blessed Mother; and many of the saints. Among these items would be treasures we found for her: a flower wilted from time, a “special” rock, ribbons, drawings (or scribbles, depending on whose eyes you were looking with.), and any number of other little gifts that had been given to her.

I was fascinated with her room, and not just because of her goody drawer of all kinds of cakes, pies, and candy either. In a quiet way, I learned more from my grandmother about God and love than I have ever learned from a priest or preacher, perhaps there is something to be said for that.

Many would not consider my grandmother a good Christian lady. She did not go to church on Sundays, except for rare occasions; and she certainly did not parade her religion around like a peacock strutting its feathers. Nor did she agree or disagree with anyone else’s expression of their beliefs, yet there was no doubt in my mind that my Nan loved God.

This is not to say Nan did not take a more active role in teaching me about God. As soon as I had been able to talk, she taught me to say my bedtime prayer, “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my Soul to keep…” I think it is a horrible prayer myself. It scared the daylights out of me thinking I might not get up in the morning! But my grandmother insisted I should say it every night, and I didn't dare argue. Although I do think I slipped in a quick "Please God let me wake up in the morning because it can be bad here, but I don't know where I'm going there." While I didn't really believe in a hell, I wasn't quite ready to take my chances since I was often told what a little devil I was.

Nanny would also clap my hands together gently and teach me how to bless myself, but these would be the only outward expressions of religion I would learn from her. The most important lessons I gleaned were about love, strength, compassion, and nurturing. And those lessons were taught to me silently, by example, not from her lecturing me about it. Maybe that is why they were so powerful.