Her name was Beulah.
She was quite a gal. Completely admirable. She
was related to me through marriage (my grandfather and her husband were
brothers) and lived not all that far from the Dahl spread.
On a Sunday I called her caregiver and asked if we might
stop by to see her after church.
“Of course!” she replies. I
hang up. The phone rings
again. It is her caregiver.
“Honestly, I think you had better come right away.” We went – John, Hannah, and myself. We held Beulah’s hand, hugged her daughters,
read precious Scriptures of promise in her ear, and sang her favorite songs to
her. She showed no response except
brown eyes that followed our every move.
She heard. She absorbed the
precious Word of God. She sang
with us in the places of her soul inaccessible to the rest of us.
I came the next day by myself, and the next day too. I read. I held. I sang. I hugged. On the third night, with her loving,
beautiful daughters buoying her up to the heavenlies, her soul left the broken
shell that had once been a strong body, full of capabilities and keen
intelligence. No more
suffering. No more waiting for her
ultimate freedom.
We filed into the tiny prairie church; her children, and
grandchildren, and all of the greats.
Her nieces and nephews and their children. Her former students and their children. The townspeople who had known her
forever.
We sang, and read, and hugged. We celebrated the extraordinariness of Beulah Long.
Oh my. I so
hope my final earthly celebration is as joyful and inspiring! Beulah made me want to accomplish a
thousand things before my capable body is a broken shell. I could not help but smile when I
looked at the program. Alongside
the order of service was Beulah’s favorite dinner roll recipe. She was famously hospitable. I loved that about her. I loved that her family represented
that with a recipe.
Later, we drove the almost comically short funeral
procession to the cemetery for the final goodbye. The day was warm and the prairie breeze gentle. I stood in the center of that
immaculate cemetery, surrounded by ancestors I never really knew – my great
uncle, my great-grandparents. Standing there under the great bowl of
blue sky I felt the connection to those ancient lives. Although strangers, they helped form
me. Laid out a path for me by the
choices they made, the children they raised, and the Lord that they
served. I am who I am in part because they lived. They were not
trying to shape the life of a far future daughter named Vonda. But they did, nonetheless.
I looked at my husband and smiled. As a gust of wind caught my hair and swirled it like a deeply
exhaled breath, he asked softly, “Do you hear it?”
I waited for more.
It came.
“Do you hear the heartbeat of the prairie? The ebb and flow of life and
death?” I did not answer but
instead listened. I heard the
meadowlark warble a song to its mate.
I heard the swish of the prairie grasses beyond the fenced boundaries of
the cemetery. I heard the quiet
whispers of Beulah’s grieving family and the whimpered cries of her great
grandbabies. I heard the chatter
of toddlers chasing butterflies, unaware that they should feel anything but
utter joy on such a gloriously beautiful day.
I did hear it. I
did. I heard the pulse of the land
– this place of endless horizon and azure skies. I heard the heart of the prairie soil that both grows food
in abundance and receives her sons and daughters back into the earth when their
journey is done.
I knew in that moment – that quiet hushed moment - that Her
heart beats within me as well.
This land, both breathtakingly beautiful and cruelly harsh at times, is
etched on my soul. My
grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be who they are because I made the
choices I did, served my Creator, and raised the children who will be their
future parents.
And someday…
Under an endless horizon and azure sky…
The Prairie will enfold me in her rich, dark soil and I will
lie with my ancestors. The ebb and
flow will continue.
Until that day, I will add my own unique story to her chronicles.
