Willa

My maternal grandmother's legacy could be described as tragic, but I choose to see it another way.

Her name was Willa. She was born on June 5 in Heber Springs, Arkansas. For at least part of her childhood, she was homeless. She lived in a tent city outside of town with her parents and siblings. Later, she married my grandfather, her first husband, and gave birth to my mother and my aunt.

My mother has said that Willa was troubled as long as she knew her. Willa was almost certainly abused as a child and later, by her second husband. By the time my mother was in college (the first in her family), it was apparent Willa was suffering from severe mental illness. My mother and my aunt were anguished. Mom was ready to quit school in order to take care of her, but mercifully was talked out of it.

Eventually, Willa was committed to a state mental hospital for long-term care of her illness. She died at age 57 from leukemia. I don't remember her, because I barely knew her. Yet, she was my grandmother.

There is a picture of me as an infant posing with Willa on her bed at the hospital. Her touch is tender, as is my mom’s, who is tickling my chin to make me smile. I like to think of this picture when I remember her. I wish I could have gotten to know her, to say that I was sorry that there were so few resources available to her as a girl, to hold her hand and hear her heartbreak and tell her of the good news of my Jesus.

I wish I could thank her for bearing her illness in such a way that my mother and aunt were able to create their own lives and thrive. I am so proud of each of them.

Both my mother and my aunt went on to graduate college and have families and careers. Despite my mother's own ongoing health struggles, there is a vast gratitude to God that arises in my heart when I consider the history of my family. My sister and I, only one generation removed, are also college graduates blessed with families and careers, and Sissy was the first to earn a doctorate. We continue to benefit from both social and cultural improvements in poverty eradication to this day.

Of course, I must also give praise for the dichotomous influence of my spitfire mama and my gracious, steadfast Aunt Lois. They are Willa's daughters and a credit to her name.

Willa remains a mystery to me, but she is also my heroine - an unknown someone whose legacy was hidden in her own life but apparent in mine. Mental illness might have dimmed her abilities but it did not obliterate her benefaction to me: my existence, and with it, a chance to honor her and my Lord with my actions - to serve, to love, to avail myself of the opportunities she did not have.

My grateful heart demands it!