This is the only picture I have with my mother, her mother, and my daughter. It was an impromptu snapshot my husband took right before loading up our four kids and heading out on our five hour trip back home after a weekend visiting grandparents.
If you look closely you can see it.
It’s not the thrift store rings Grandma Kay loved to wear on the majority of her fingers. It’s not the most current picture of beloved grandchildren neatly displayed on my mom’s refrigerator. It’s also not the similar smiles given to us by strong family lines.
If you look past the tired eyes and the silence of ALS before it began robbing grandma of her ability to swallow and ultimately breathe, you can see a legacy.
Not perfect love where there are no wounds or disappointment. But love that’s purposefully passed down and woven into each other’s lives. A kind of love that forgives and forgets, and believes wholeheartedly that God really will make beauty from our ashes. It’s like a ribbon in my daughter’s hand that we each gently hold on to.
We are four generations of women who love.
The LORD
Our men
Our families
And we aspire to love our neighbors as ourselves
Happy Mother’s Day