A Grandmother’s Legacy Never Dies

My grandmother was a Christian puppeteer. She would play the parts of brother and sister, Wilbur and Willette, race their dog King back and forth, and yell in their mother’s scratchy voice from “off stage,” all from behind her big blue curtain while my aunt talked to the puppets and sang from center stage.

Sometimes I’d sit on a folding chair behind the curtain with her. Sometimes I’d watch from the audience. From churches to the Iowa State Fair to summer camps, I witnessed hundreds of children give their lives to Jesus.

She wasn’t just my grandmother, she was a grandmother to all the children she met. She loved them deeply and made sure they knew Jesus loved them deeply too. She had a heart for everyone, but especially those overlooked and forgotten.

I can still remember following her up and down the halls of local nursing homes, pushing residents’ wheelchairs one by one into the cafeteria where that same blue curtain was waiting for them. My aunt sang and ministered to the residents while my grandmother’s puppets heckled and joked with them, bringing soft smiles and laughter to faces that had nearly forgotten how.

And then one day when I was eight, she died unexpectedly. I told my mom that the children in Heaven must need puppets more, but oh, how I longed for those puppets myself.

Wilbur, Willette, and King the Dog were carefully boxed up. The trunk of candies and small toys used for her shows slowly migrated to the basement. And it wasn’t long before my grandfather had remarried.

As a child, it made me wonder how such a huge legacy could be so quickly forgotten. As an adult, it hurt my heart that my own child would never be able to be a part of it, would never feel that deep love for herself. But death never stopped God from moving before.

My aunt was walking at the Iowa State Fair later that year when a young puppeteer accidentally ran into her with his puppet-sized Model T Ford. God surprised her with a husband and a new partner.

My mother began volunteering in the church nursery, then singing in the choir, then logging Wednesday nights and weekend outings with the youth group. Soon, she was leading small groups and preaching in teen pregnancy and drug rehabilitation centers.

My brothers launched churches and men’s Bible studies, played the bass guitar and drums for worship services, volunteered in children’s ministry, and traveled the world to tell children about Jesus. I spent over 10 years volunteering in children’s church, led a women’s small group, and launched a ministry as a Christian writer, encouraging both children and their mothers in the faith.

Between my brothers and me, we’ve raised seven children who know how deeply Jesus loves them. And whether they’ve realized it yet or not, they’re invisibly anchored in the faith by that big blue curtain, by a love that was too deep and a heart that was too big to be buried all those years ago.

Sometimes I still long for her. I wish she could have met my daughter. I wish, no, ache, for my daughter to be wrapped up in her arms, to be marveled over as if she were the best little girl in the entire world, in the way only my grandmother could.

But I know without a doubt that while her body may have given out, her heart never will. Her legacy has persisted over 30 years later, seeing her children and grandchildren through births and deaths, wins and losses, laughter and tears. Her prayers have carried us through it all.

And when we see her again in Heaven, my daughter will finally get her chance. And it will be thanks to my grandmother that we, and thousands more people, will be there at all.

It turns out a grandmother’s legacy never dies. Because grandmothers spend their lives planting thousands of seeds God continues to water long after they’re gone. He uses their warm hugs and big blue curtains to change not just their families—but to change eternity. And that is something death can never take from us.