Grandma Toodles and Joy – Why We Need Family

We need family more than ever. I was recently reminded of this by Grandma Toodles. She died yesterday. Ninety and stricken with cancer, she died at home in Johnston Station, Mississippi where she raised five children and provided the love and support for untold numbers of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, family and friends. The roots she developed are why today so many of her grandchildren stayed home and are growing their own families in the community.

In my travels visiting our wounded troops, a heart breaking reality is that most of these young men and women do not have close families and deep rooted hometown communities to return to. We are quickly becoming a country of dispersed individuals.

This past weekend I was with people who had known me since birth, many of whom had lived the majority of their lives in this small Mississippi town. We gathered in my grandma’s hospital room and sang hymns together. It was one of the most joyful moments in my entire life. Everyone in the room had supported someone else in the room at one or more times in their life, and we were united with love. The kind of love that obscures the shiny trivialities of life and focuses us on what is really important: faith, family and love.

Then we brought Grandma home to where she had raised her babies and spoiled her grandchildren, and we comforted her from this life to the next. You lived a joyous life Grandma, now you can rest.

I believe there is a silver lining in our current crisis. I believe people will move home, so to speak. People will search out roots and they will begin to nourish roots that have been neglected. Join them and comfort those in search of life, especially our troops and veterans.

Maybe this culture of the individual will become the culture of family and joy will become a common thing. Now more than ever, we need family.