For my grandmother

Its interesting to me when people come into my mind, people that have passed away from this world. Memory is an interesting thing. Lately I have been thinking a lot about my Grandmother, my Mom's Mom, who passed a long time ago when I was 13. I loved her dearly, and still do, and she often "comes" into my mind especially when I am in need of strength, because to me she was one of the strongest women I have ever known.

I often think of her and how hard but also comforting it must have been for her to go back to the synagogue after so many years of not going after my Grandfather died. She left the Jewish faith when she married my Grandfather, because he was catholic by faith, though a stout athiest in his beliefs, more of a scientist really. My grandfather was an anthropologist and he traveled around studying Eskimos and also groups of village folks in Pakistan, so my Grandmother often traveled with him in the field. Her family pretty much disowned her when she hooked up with my grandfather because of the religious differences.

Love is sometimes as strange and wondrous thing I guess and when the two met in NY, they fell in love and all the religious rules just didn't matter.

I think my Grandmother was hit harder then my Grandfather because like I said he was a man who only believed in facts and figures, she was a more stronger spiritual person and I think she always kept a relationship with some kind of higher power I am pretty sure, especially after her eldest got sick with polio back in the 50s, not sure how else she could have gotten through that. But she made the choice to leave the synagogue to be with him, and I don't know that she regretted it, we never really talked about it. All I know is that she has been on my mind lately, and I know that after my Grandfather passed, 7 years before her, she went back to the synagogue and I have this strange vision of her in my head sitting and sewing a tapestry or a curtain, in the synagogue, because when she went back, she did a lot of volunteer work there, and I think it was part of her spiritual healing maybe. All of this is of course my patchy memory and thoughts of her of which I am not even sure the source.
When she died though I was only 13, that's when I started looking for something I think. I was studying all these different faiths, especially the more eastern philosophies, like Hinduism and also Buddhism. I think I was trying to make sense of it all, I probably still am.Its interesting that in my searching I also became very lost, trying to fill some void with the "wrong" things. Yet I have to say, was it all "bad" or "wrong" if it lead me to the place I am today with my beautiful family?

I have yet to make a decision about religion, and I don't really feel I need to have one definitively. I know I believe in something greater than myself, and that there sometimes seems to be some order in the chaos of life. But other than that, I leave it alone. I am not a fan or organized religion, maybe because I know how badly it hurt my Grandmother to be exiled, or to exile herself, from her religion, just because she married the "wrong" religion. And to me that is probably not some greater God's rule, but more a human rule, but that's just my two cents. I will get off my soap box now.

I miss her though still, and I wish she could have known my children, but for all I know she does know my children, you know? What do I know of the afterlife if there is one? Not much, as I am still here, gratefully. That is all.