Eyes on the Unseen Prize

  ***

  Piper tried to find the time to bring Nick to see her grandma, but things were busy at work for both of them. She wasn’t too worried about that, though, as she thought she had some time. She didn’t realize that the last time she saw Grandma McCoy would be the last time she saw her beloved grandma. Her father called her at work one afternoon about a week after she visited with her grandma to share the news that she had died in her sleep. Her dad discovered her body when he went to see her, concerned that she hadn’t answered his calls.

  A feeling of profound sadness and deep loss clenched her heart and filled her eyes with tears. She loved and admired her grandmother very much, and wanted to be like her in many ways.

  “At least she died peacefully and without pain,” Piper whimpered. “Dying in your sleep is probably one of the easiest ways to go,” she said in an effort to console her dad. Piper knew that her dad’s struggle to overcome his grief would dwarf her own struggle as his mom was not only his mentor and hero, but she was a significant source of comfort to him.

  “The funeral will be on Saturday,” her dad said between sniffles. “Can you come?”

  “Of course, Dad!”

  “We’ll need to go to her house to prepare it for sale. She left behind quite a few trinkets that weren’t in her will, so I’m sure that we’ll be meeting Uncle Ed and his family there. She connected with everyone through a little trinket.”

  “I just saw her, Dad. Just last week. I had a feeling that…”

  “Oh, Piper,” he said with his voice crackling, “I’m glad you visited her. I’ve always appreciated the way you dropped by Grandma’s house so often. I know she loved you.”

  A short while later, Piper hung up the phone and went to see her boss. She needed to ask for time off for the rest of the week, and fortunately her request was granted.

  While driving home, she shared the news of her grandmother’s passing over the phone with Nick. Though he couldn’t take the time off from work, he volunteered to help out in any way he could after work. Attending the funeral Saturday wouldn’t be a problem for him either.

  “She wanted to see you. That was one of the last things she said to me.”

  “Don’t worry, Piper. She’ll always be with us in our hearts. I feel good about the fact you just saw her. That will help with your closure. She lived a good life, Piper, a God-driven life.”

  The next morning, Piper arrived at her grandmother’s house and found that it was in immaculate condition. Red, yellow and white tulips had been placed in large planters by the front door, which appeared to be freshly painted in a glossy black finish. The interior was as clean and tidy as she had ever seen it. She figured her dad and relatives must have been very busy over the past day preparing the home for sale.

  When she entered the kitchen, she found her dad, uncle, and Kip there. Kip was Piper’s same age and was always one of her favorite cousins. Thoughtful and responsible, he had always impressed her. In some ways, he was similar to Nick, which is one of the reasons Piper found Nick to be such a fine catch.

  “We don’t need to plan the funeral,” her dad said when she met him and Kip in the kitchen.

  “Why not? Did she come back to life?” Kip joked.

  “Would you believe Grandma planned her own funeral at the Copper Funeral Home? The only thing missing from her plans was the date. She covered everything else. Casket, service, eulogy, tombstone, gravesite. Already purchased. Her gravesite will be right next to Grandpa’s in Copper’s graveyard. She even wrote her own eulogy. Her own eulogy! All we need to do is show up.”

  Her dad wiped the tears from his eyes with his sleeve as he peered into Piper’s. She had only seen him show emotions such as these once before, when her mom died. Other than that, just about any calamity he had experienced in life was met with a calmness equivalent to the calmness of a sea of glass. Scott McCoy had never lost his cool.

  Maybe to him and perhaps as a product of his upbringing, being a man was defined as showing no emotions. Today, and perhaps only one other time in his adult past, he violated what Piper thought to be a silly social norm. His teary eyes showed he was mourning the passing of his mom, which helped her to cement her love for her dad even more. He loved his mother and Piper appreciated a son’s love for his mother. If she had sons one day who exhibited the same emotions of love her father had shown for his mother, she would be a very lucky woman. She didn’t believe that men needed to hide their emotions. Jesus never hid his emotions. When Lazarus died, Jesus wept. Then He brought him back to life.

  The group moved about the room, sorting trinkets and packing items such as food, clothing, and blankets. “Grandma McCoy never wanted to rely on anyone,” Piper’s dad said in a sudden sort of a way. “It wasn’t that she didn’t trust us. It was that she didn’t want to be a burden. She was too independent to be a burden.”

  “Dad,” Piper said, feeling that she had something important to add to that notion. “I think God answered that prayer in the way she passed.”

  “Amen,” Kip said.

  Silence filled the room as everyone reflected on that thought before Piper’s dad responded. “I think you’re right, Piper.”

  A while later, Uncle Edward blurted out, “and she was so organized. Check this out.” He pulled the appraisals of all of the silver items in her will from a drawer. “She had everything appraised! Everything.” He showed the group a bunch of papers with documented evidence of the value others had placed on the silver items in her home.

  “Her house sure seems clean,” Piper said as she moved about. “Which one of you took care of vacuuming and dusting? And the tulips? And the front door? Everything looks very nice.”

  Kip, her dad, and her uncle looked at one another as they waited for an answer.

  “Kip or Ed, did one of you clean this place before I came?” Her father asked.

  “Nope, Uncle Scott,” Kip answered. “Grandma must have done it.” He walked over to the front door and opened it. “Wow. Freshly painted. Didn’t notice that when I came in. Guess she didn’t want to leave anything for us to do.”

  “I think she knew it was her time. She said something to that effect when I saw her last week. Something about telling Jesus that she was ready.”

  Kip laughed. “I like that. Telling Him that she’s ready instead of asking to join Him. That’s Grandma. Vintage Grandma.”

  Piper could see her dad was coming to terms with the passing of his mom. She walked over to the back door of the house and stepped out onto the patio to look around. The perfectly trimmed bushes stood in front of her, and she wondered when they would be trimmed again and by whom. A butterfly appeared, large and beautiful. Maybe it was a Monarch. Maybe something else. Whatever it was, it fluttered in front of her in its black and orange glory as if to say “Hello” much longer than she expected. Piper recalled the way that butterflies were released on Easter at the church. A new life. Grandma has embarked on a new life in heaven.

  Her dad joined her on the patio. “Sailor and the cousins should be arriving soon. Your grandma put everything of value into her will, including her jewelry and the house. But her trinkets aren’t in the will, so Ed and I figured we would survey you and Sailor and his kids for anything you wanted.”

  “The frog on the rock,” Piper answered. “Is that in the will?”

  “No. I read the will. Nothing about a frog on a rock. What’s that?”

  Piper headed back into the house to the table next to the jar of candy where she had last found the frog on the rock. It wasn’t there. The familiar words of her grandma played back in her mind and encouraged her to keep looking, as they always did. She checked out the terrarium and all of the windowsills and the tops of the tables. Still no frog on the rock. Heading towards the organ, she looked again at the wooden carving of Jesus’ Last Supper, thinking that the frog on the rock would be nearby. She was right.