Cleaning up the Room

My oldest daughter is on a quest to make money. Lots of money. Enough money, she tells me, that she can buy her own ipod. Bev tells me this one night, that our oldest daughter who is not really a small child anymore, is signaling her quest for independence by declaring that things such as cleaning her room, doing dishes, vacuuming or making lunch will now cost me money. Suddenly I feel old. Not only am I expected to pay for such services, but the price is negotiable, I have discovered. “Cleaning my room? That will be, like, at least $5” I hear one night.

Maybe I should be upset. I only smile. Probably because I haven’t doled out one penny for anything yet, probably because it amuses me to watch her carving out her space, and probably because I know she is keeping track somewhere and one day I will receive a bill. And me being the sucker that I am, I will probably haggle with her about it, come to an agreement, and fork over some of my money that will become her money. She still remembers that I bought a piece of dutch sausage—rookworst—from her at the supper table for a loonie 3 years ago and that my payments are in arrears.

So last week she asks me “so what can I do to earn money now” and I, in a moment of clarity and wisdom that reminds me of my mom and dad, says “I don’t know what you can do for money, but what you can do is clean up that mess in the basement” which is followed by a roll of the eyes, a snear, and a not so subtle “you're not really that funny” line that makes me laugh even harder. But in a moment of pure parental bliss, she listens. I don’t even dare go down there for fear of interrupting or receiving a bill for services rendered. For the sake of fairness, I must admit she spent hours down there and did a wonderful job; that basement is clean—for now. And she is an amazing young woman, I am grateful beyond words for her.

But here is the thing. After an hour she comes up with a small tiny Bible that I’ve never seen. A Gideon’s Bible. "New Testament and the Psalms" the cover reads, and I chuckle at the thought of someone lifting a Bible from a hotel room years ago. That Bible has been sitting in our toy room for 10 years and no one has ever seen it before. So I open the front cover and before me I read “Mrs. H. Beimers, 1978.” My grandmother. The word we used in our family was “Beppa”, a word that comes from my northern Dutch background. My dad’s mom. A woman who lived to be a 100. A woman who I visited on July 15, 1994, the day I got married, when she was 98 years and I was moving to the States the next week and I knew I would never see her alive again. She died 18 months later, 100 years old. What a woman!

I’ve only known my Beppa as a widow living in a local nursing home. She never drove and I don’t have many memories of her visiting our house--although one time my dad get a speeding ticket with her sitting in the back seat, that I won't forget! We would go every Sunday afternoon to visit her. My brother and I only had to stay for a few minutes then we could sneak downstairs and play pool or pingpong, or if we were feeling brace we would sneak out the back door and feed the horses in the field next door, and when it was time to go we would receive a peppermint or stale cookie, a wet kiss on the cheek, and then home we would go. I would do anything to have one more visit, and I am sure I wouldn't sneak away to go play pool. I would hang on every word. My Beppa, like me, loved to talk. But if I had one more time, I think I would just listen.

When my daughter gave me this Bible, in a very strange way it humanized my dear Beppa in a way that I had never thought of before. Never in my life have I pictured my grandmother staying in a motel room. I have this picture of her at some Motel 6 (not a Hotel, in my spiritual economy as a kid I learned that hotels were suspiciously sinful because Hotel’s had pubs and other sketchy activities, so she definitely would have been a Motel woman), and I can picture her, 83 years old in 1978, picking out a Bible from the nightstand table next to the bed and faithfully reading the scriptures, followed by her putting her hand on the bed to balance her as she went to her knees to close the day in prayer. I picture her climbing into this hotel bed at night, laying her head down, and checking the clock radio for the time and getting a good night rest, falling asleep thinking of…what would she think of? Her husband who died 11 years earlier? Her 9 sons who lived all over Canada and Holland? Or perhaps just about what the next day would bring. What do grandmother’s think of before they fall asleep. Our daughter finds this Bible and for the first time I find myself wondering what my dear Beppa thought of as she drifted off to sleep. As I am typing this I suddenly wonder what she was thinking as she drifted off for the last time and went to meet the Lord.

So this Bible that my daughter finds when she is cleaning up the room suddenly makes me think about my Beppa in a whole new way. And it brings a smile to my face to know that there was a night in 1978 that my Beppa drifted off to sleep in some motel room, and I tell myself that maybe, just maybe, she was thinking of me that night, the way I am thinking about her today. And I chuckle as I think about her grabbing this Bible the next morning, this King James Version, this Gideon's Bible, and I see her tucking it into her purse. And I know, without a doubt, no one had to tell her to clean the room the next morning before she packed her bags and got on with her journey, wherever she was going. Rest in peace Beppa, tonight I miss you.