Growing to Love Whom We're Handed

Our tradition in November of remembering those who have died gives us the opportunity to continue to learn from their lives. One important lesson they teach us is summarized by Anne Tyler in her book Back When We Were Grownups: “Apparently you grow to love whom you’re handed.”

My Grandma Halling was handed parents, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins, a husband, 12 children, 33 grandchildren, and a church community during her life. She grew to love them through the everyday tasks of cooking, cleaning, nursing, gardening, sewing, and praying—all that was required to raise a family on a small farm in Northeastern Kansas in the early to mid 20th century. She didn’t know how the lives of her children and grandchildren would unfold or what would become of the farm after she died; she simply loved those she was handed as best she could in the midst of the circumstances of her life. I don’t know what eternal life is like for her, but I do know that she is still loving those she’s been handed wherever her spirit now dwells.

We don’t have any control over who our parents or siblings or fellow community members are, and often we end up with people who are very challenging to live with. And yet in all circumstances God calls us to love, because that is the nature of God, and it is through God that we live and move and have our being. It’s a process, growing to love whom we’re handed, but our holy dead have shown us through their lives that it is possible and that we can do it too.