Her Name Is Martha
Martha carried a love for me that was unconditional and ever-flowing. She was the champion of our family and the glue of which held these opposites attract to each other. She was a storyteller, an amateur botanist, lover of travel and the beauty of this world, and a deeply rooted King James quoting Christian.
She believed in the good of every soul she met and she left marks on every person she encountered the decades she worked at her and my grandfather’s hardware store. There is and will never be anyone like Martha.
Growing up as child I would wander the aisles filled with boxes of hardware gadgets and pretend they were my harbor of safety and imagination. She gave me a place to build my imagination. She believed in my creative nature before I even knew how life saving it would become to this queer, non-binary human I am today. Every drawing or story I told she would re-tell to customers or place me on top of the counter so I could see the humanity that walked in and out of their store. She instilled in me the valuable lesson that every human being had value in their stories and in their being. She was my entry point to pastoral care - my anchor.
It saddens me our own story. Riddled with detachment as I would abandon my closeness with her in college as my mother threatened the death of her if I told her my “secret” of being queer. I do not regret the world’s unfolding with this - I only wish we had more time to reclaim what a cruel theology robbed us.
Despite my detachment, she would continue to reach out. She’d call me at all hours randomly to ask, “Rachael, baby, how are you?” She was the voice of honesty and God in human form. She never ever gave up on my becoming. She believed in every action and step I took - even if it was un-useful. She believed in God’s guidance and the truth of Isaiah 41:10….”’Fear not, for I am with you;Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’” She was the living witness of a God who will never abandon you. She preached it in her love and action. She did this until her very last possible breath as she battled an impossible recovery from surgery.
I came out to her in 2018. It took me an hour because of the years of being told such a false truth. She melted my fear instantly as I stood outside in the snow walking up and down my street. “Tell me all about your friend,” she said. Her check in calls became calls about us - my now wife and I. She always remembered. She always asked. I would cry on the phone with her that day and apologize for the lost time. I would do this once more in 2019 when she called me to ask to come to our wedding a mere 24 hours after a dinner with my parents who informed her they were denying my invitation.
She traveled to Asheville with my grandfather and made their way up steps as they wobbled in. My grandmother grabbed my wife lovingly and said, “welcome to the family.” They beamed; she beamed. The photo I’m holding is of her telling my birth story to C’s family. She loved this story. It was her favorite one of all stories to tell. The moment I burst into the world was the moment life changed for her she would pronounce boldly. I was someone special; her baby.
My grandmother would also tell me whenever she saw me, “you’ll never know how much I love you.” The last time I saw her before she died I was visiting her bedside at home. She used every ounce of energy to force words through her windpipe to say her phrase…and then she paused. She looked at me differently. She said to me, “you do know, don’t you?” I shook my head and told her, “I believe you and I love you.” She told me that her love would go with me wherever I am. I left that day knowing that my entire life my grandmother loved me unconditionally and gave me opportunities to become that no one else would offer. She loved me truly without condition.
The night of her death I dreamed of her. I was trying to walk up to her but she shook her hands no. But she looked like herself. No loss of life; just joy. I woke up that morning and continued into my day feeling a cosmic shift. I received a phone call that afternoon she had passed early morning exactly when I woke up from my vivid dream. She loved me in flesh and in spirit. She loved me so much she left me with the image of her as I knew her. My God a saint.
Her name is Martha. She loves stories, birds, nature, the mountains, and watching human life unfold. She loves my wife and our family. She is watching over us all under the great cloud of witnesses.
At her funeral I believe I experienced what transcendence is and why resurrection is so powerful. During her visitation, being with her felt like sitting in her favorite sun room of her home, except she didn’t share stories - our family did. When we left the room for the burial, I knew then, she was no longer on this earth. You had risen, indeed to be with the God you knew never left your side. Before the visitation concluded, I came to her side and I whispered, “I believe you and I love you.”