Say that your main crop is the forest: Practice Resurrection Stories
May Stage Gregory, my grandmother’s foster mother
“Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion — put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.”
Seymour and May Gregory were a childless couple who lived in a poor, rural area in New York's upstate farmland. Seymour drove a milk truck and May cared for their small farm. My great-grandfather knew Seymour and May was because he was a tax collector and he drove a wagon from house to house to collect taxes. The Gregory's were on his route. Somehow -- we're not really sure how the decision was made -- my great-grandfather asked this kind couple if they would allow his 11-year-old daughter - my grandmother - to live with them.
My grandmother, Geraldine, was born on February 2, 1912. Her mother died the day after Christmas 1912 at the age of 25. Geraldine was less than a year old. She lived with her widowed father and older sister for a few of her childhood years until my great-grandfather remarried. She then lived with her father, stepmother, and two half-sisters until she turned 11. Unfortunately, her new mother fit the stereotype of the unloving stepmother and (we assume) forced her husband to make a decision between her and his two daughters.
And so it was that Seymour and May Gregory became my grandmother's new guardians. One day, my great-grandfather took 11-year-old Geraldine and her one tiny suitcase to the Gregory’s house and left her there. She’d never met them before in her life and her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have tried to imagine what it must’ve felt like to be Geraldine that day.
Tragically, Seymour died less than two years after he and his wife took my grandmother into their home.
Here’s a bit about that incident in my Grandmother’s own words:
“The following summer came my first great sorrow. Mr. Gregory whom I called Uncle, was instantly killed when struck by a train, as he was crossing the track in a milk truck. I had lived with him less than two years but he had been to me my best friend during that time. No father could have been more devoted and kind to a child than he was to me.”
I am fascinated by the implications of my grandmother’s gentle clarity. Her first great sorrow? What about her mother dying when she was a baby? What about her cruel stepmother and her own father abandoning her when she was 11?
I think she answers the question with her final sentence: “No father could have been more devoted and kind to a child than he was to me.” Without speaking the words, she lets us know that Uncle Seymour’s death was the greater sorrow because he was the one who’d offered her a true father’s love.
May Gregory and my grandmother lived a hardscrabble life keeping the farm and a whole assortment of odd jobs to make a living. Here again, in my Grandmother’s own words:
“It was a sorrowful summer for my aunt and I but instead of ceasing from the work of the farm, we let it be our company and pastime. I helped the men in the hayfield, did chores, and ran errands in preference to household duties, and none of these seemed to injure my health in any way. In fact, I enjoyed this sort of work and I did not hesitate whenever asked to help with it.
The next winter we hired an old man, who understood farming quite well, to do the chores and to look after other things needing attention. He was a jolly, good-natured old man, who was full of interesting and oftentimes rather amazing stories. He never tired of telling them as long as he had a listener and I certainly enjoyed an evening spent in listening to his tales.
Many times during the winter it was difficult to walk to school but I always did my best to get there each day because I disliked the idea of missing any time. However, the roads were impassable for a few days and I was forced to remain at home.
At the close of school we dismissed our hired man and my aunt and I were left alone to do the work. We thought nothing of rising before five A. M. and having six cows milked and turned away by six o’clock. I finally decided early morning was the best time of day. The air was cool, birds flew to and fro singing their merry songs with nothing to disturb them, and finally came the rising of the sun, whose first appearance was like a ball of fire from the east until little by little it became smaller and finally it would seem natural again.
After that summer May Gregory realized she’d need to sell the farm. I noticed in my grandmother’s memoir she shares the incident as if she were part of making the decision:
“The summer passed swiftly and it seemed even quicker because we were busy most of the time. At last in the latter part of August we sold our farm. I dreaded to leave it but I knew it was impossible for us to run it as it should be.
Barely a teenager and already shouldering the weight of sustaining a livelihood. I suspect that both women - the adult May and the adolescent Geraldine - shouldered together the work as they shouldered together the grief of many sorrows.
My mother and her sisters knew May as Grandma Gregory. The once childless woman lived a long, faithful life surrounded by a daughter and five granddaughters. As Grandma Gregory, May continued to nurture and support my grandmother, sharing a lifetime of work and grief. When my grandfather died at age 42 he left behind 5 young daughters for my grandmother to raise alone. Where Geraldine once offered companionship to May when Seymour died, Grandma Gregory stayed close to Geraldine after she, too, became a young widow. Grandma Gregory remained a steady, faithful presence for the rest of her life.
I'll never forget my grandmother's 80th birthday when we asked her to tell us the story again. We waited for Grandma to show even the tiniest bit of sadness or anger as she recounted being left on the doorstep of strangers. While there must’ve been both sadness and anger, I believed my Grandma when she told us this story was actually happy because it was May Stage Gregory who introduced her to Jesus.
I did not comprehend the resurrection glory held in this family story for most of my growing-up years. It had become too familiar to me. For the past decade, I’ve been intentionally reminding us about the merciful May Stage Gregory. When he turned 21, we added Gregory to our son Alexander’s middle name. In the sacrificial love of providing care for an unwanted child, the Gregorys changed the entire course of our family history. We don’t ever want to forget their name.
Seymour and May Gregory planted seeds of resurrection in the unpromising ground of an 11-year-old orphan’s life. Death and grief and financial hardship, as well as laughter and storytelling and the beauty of family, tended that ground while the roots grew deep in the miraculous love of Jesus. My children and my children’s children will continue to reap the harvest of this unconditional, merciful love.
May we continue to replant the seeds of resurrection over and over and over again. Amen.