My grandmother Verna died in 2001 at the age of 103 with her boots on, as the saying goes. Her body was broken down by the years, but her mind and spirit remained strong to the very end.

Gram was born in 1898 to two itinerant Methodist minister ‘circuit riders’. She was the oldest of 5 children. From that generation, especially as the oldest child of strict upbringing, she took on the values of absolute and unthinking service to her family and others as a sacred trust. By the time I came along in the 1950’s she was herself in her 50’s, trying to put together a new life and recovering from an extremely abusive marriage, the death of one of her sons during WWII, severe mental illness in her other son, and the sense that the ‘picture’ that she had painted about what her life was supposed to look like was blurred and distorted.

By the time my mother, her oldest of two daughters, died in the late 1970’s of ovarian cancer, Gram’s picture of how life works had been completely turned upside down. Possibly because of the trauma of her lifetime, her faith in the God of her fathers was strong, but not necessarily flexible. Gram had come to view life as something to be survived rather than cherished as unpredictable, unknowable and wild. Gram’s life had been full of great sorrow and very little adventure, although she had wonderful life-long friends, and grand/great-grand and great-great-grand children who adored her.

While my relationship with Gram was one of the most solid and grounded in my life, there were some things we didn’t talk about. One of them was my liberal stance to politics and spirituality. Although I knew that I stood on my mother’s shoulders and she on Gram’s the gulf was wide to dialogue around certain key life issues. Gram wanted to be able to understand my much less constructed spirituality, but we did not have the same framework, so we would occasionally talk about the issues but could never directly address them as the potential for rift between us was something neither of us wanted to risk.

In 1992 as I was in seminary in Colorado, Gram was living in an assisted living community in central Florida. She was 94 and going strong. She fell and broke her hip, or her hip broke and she fell. She hit her head in the fall and wasn’t able to use the ‘lifeline’. She wasn’t found in her little apartment until several hours later, and though rushed to the emergency room, she nearly died. Strapped to a gurney, Gram had the following near-death experience, which she related to me a few months later while I was visiting her. At first I was dismayed that she hadn’t told me about the experience on the phone, but I came to realize that this was such a powerful turning point for her, that it could only be transmitted face to face.

In the near-death experience, Gram was in a long rectangular ‘room’ with curtains drawn in front and behind her. The curtains were of no particular color and were not opaque. They seemed translucent. She said that the setting reminded her of a train or bus station. Somehow she knew that the curtain behind her clearly signified her life up to that time; the curtain in front symbolized her existence after physical death. A wall was on her right, but no wall that she could recall on her left. As she took all of this in, she felt a Presence sitting close to her on her left. When I pressed her for clarity she hesitantly called the entity Jesus. I’m quite sure the hesitancy came from humility, not lack of clarity. She never turned her head to look at him.

They had a long wordless conversation about what being in that particular moment in her life meant. Gram was emphatic about the fact that they didn’t ‘talk with words’; they communicated mind to mind, heart to heart. She recalled feeling like there was no past or future. They talked about whether she should choose to return to life on this side of the curtain, or go on. Up to that point, she didn’t know that she had a choice. The surprise in her voice as she told me about this was endearing and gave me a catch in my throat.

They talked about an incident for which she had not forgiven herself for 40+ years. Jesus said to her, ‘Verna, I know you’ve asked for forgiveness for something time and again, but for the Life of me, I can’t remember what it is.’ In recalling this moment Gram said, ‘And you know, I can’t seem to remember it now either.’ Gram had an incredible memory so I don’t think she meant this literally. I think she had let her memory be wiped clean of judgment and rhetoric.

In describing the entire experience, there was much detail and much that lacked words, but tears and body language spoke of the immensity of experience.

Part of the conversation with Jesus was about how to ‘be’ if she decided to return to this side of the curtain. He suggested that she just continue to talk to him like she was doing at that moment–all the time. When she expressed misgivings about how she could do so, he just gently said for her to try it and see how it worked. When she asked if it would be better for her family for her to stay ‘here’ he suggested that she might be just as useful on the other side of the curtain. This non-linearity was an astounding idea for pragmatic Gram.

Gram said that she felt fully awake during this encounter, and that coming back ‘here’ she started to fall back asleep. She said she knew she would wake up again when she actually did go to the other side of that curtain and she seemed to be much less fearful of dying after this revelation.

When she tried to tell me about her experience of Jesus, she was wordless. She just said how surprisingly close he was. I stumblingly quoted a Biblical phase, ‘No, Beth,’ she replied quickly and firmly. ‘Closer than your own skin.’

I remember taking in my breath sharply, as I felt my understanding of ancestral wisdom take a quantum leap. Somehow I knew that her words would be the Lighthouse for the rest of my life—to understand and experience spiritual lineage in a cellular light.

After this experience, Gram’s personal and spiritual boundaries expanded immensely. She was much freer to express her feelings of love and yet more detached from the result. She was alternately disturbed, amused and delighted by the way life opened before her. She had always had a grounded spiritual presence, now she moved to a new level of understanding of the human condition and her own place in the world.

She was able to describe, although not use the word, detachment. She was now able to see her role as matriarch with more perspective. She found herself interested in other spiritualities, other ways of living in the world. She and I could now talk of my spiritual journey and share things that I wouldn’t have imagined being able to share earlier on in our relationship.

On her 99th birthday, I asked her as I did every year, ‘What did you learn this year, Gram?’ She responded without hesitation, ‘I had to re-think my theology again this year. I always thought that it was my job to worry and try to keep all of you (her extended family) on the straight and narrow path to heaven. Now I know that all I have to do is love you. That’s all I have to do!’

Gram’s new found amazement with life’s mystery stayed with her until her death at 103. She slipped a little here and there into worry and fretting over her family, but by and large, she was free.

Gram’s transformation into freedom from the known is the template for my life. While I have started my adult life with an expanded picture of life thanks in large part to my Grandmother’s and Mother’s love, I know that my life’s work will continuously be transformation from what is known to what is unknown. This template keeps my life from ever becoming a known quantity. And for this I am both grateful and cranky, hopeful and anxious! As I work to eliminate my anxiety about my family’s well-being, Gram’s words on her 99th birthday bounce around inside my head, ‘You just have to love them, Beth, that’s all you have to do!’ What has ceased to be remarkable about this is that I feel her ‘just loving me’ from wherever she is and her love and guidance are instantly available anytime I ask for them.

Gram comes to me in many ways; her presence is most clear when my mind wants to attach to something and name it, label it, quantify it. I feel her gentle spirit saying, ‘Not this, not that, Beth. Keep on seeing more clearly.’

And so in this 10th year of the anniversary of her death, I affirm her life within me. She is closer than my skin. She is in the breath that I breath, the thoughts that I think. She literally is my inspiration. Thank you and deep bows of gratitude to you, dear Gram for your leadership. It continues, just as Jesus said it would.

And what’s more, she and all our ancestors are available for each of us. Ancestors become a communal as well as personal pool of wisdom, guidance and inspiration. While we are closer to the spiritual and familial ancestral lineage, the field of available love for us to draw on is unlimited and abundant.

So party on, my friends. There’s no lack of anything in this universe. It’s all closer than our skin. It just takes us being willing to tune our receivers to a different frequency—and let go of our preconceived ideas of what it’s all about.

I join you there, at THAT party.

Stay together friends, don’t scatter and sleep. Our friendship is made of staying awake. –Rumi