I've just returned home from a 75 minute walk with my dog, Jonah. Instead of going to Snug Harbor, which is across the street from my house, I decided to walk a bit further - to Silver Lakes Park - and let Jonah loose in the dog park there. I did not check the weather or temperature outside before we left, but I knew pretty quickly that it was really, really cold out. (I've just learned, upon returning, that it was 27, but with the windchill, "feels like 13." Yes, indeed, it did. We had a beautiful walk, though, and while my glasses are still fogged up and my fingers have not quite thawed out, I'm glad we went. We both needed the exercise and fresh air.

I decided this morning that I would pack up all my Christmas decorations this afternoon, so in a little bit that's what I'm going to do. When we got in from our walk, I carried the empty Christmas boxes upstairs to my apartment from my storage area on the first floor, and, once again, am thinking of my grandmother, Alice Biscomb, and how much I miss her. I miss her at times throughout the year, but especially at Christmas, because I inherited many of my most beloved decorations from her, including my manger scene.

I remember seeing it in her living room every year when my family arrived for our Christmas visit. Grandma's house was always very neat and very clean, and when we pulled in to her driveway on West 7 Mile Road in Detroit after the twelve-hour drive, she always had a stew simmering or roast  in the oven. My grandmother was a very good cook, and her home was always warm and smelled great.

I think of my grandmother a lot now, because she was alone for the entire time I knew her, with the exception of a couple of years when her sister, my Great-Aunt Annie, lived with her before passing away in the early '80's. My grandfather, whom I would have called "Pum" had I ever had the chance to meet him, died on April Fool's Day, 1975 - one month and sixteen days before I was born. So Grandma was on her own from that day forward, and now, the longer I am single, I think of her more, and I feel like I understand her much better now than I ever could have as a child or teen. 

As I carried the box for the manger scene upstairs, I noticed her familiar and very unique handwriting on top of the cardboard Florida Citrus box. She had written:

MANGER SCENE USED IN 1993.

A.B.

That was her last Christmas on earth. None of us knew it at the time, but cancer was most certainly already hard at work destroying her from the inside out. She must have known something was up, though, to write that on the top of the box. The following summer, she moved in to my parents' guest room in Roanoke. Dr. Aubrey Knight, a geriatric specialist and close friend, examined her and came to the house to deliver the news personally. Sitting down with her in my parents' living room, he said gently, "Alice, you have cancer." According to my mom, Grandma seemed to know, though, to our knowledge, she had not been diagnosed by a previous doctor. She did a round or two of chemo, but it was futile at that point. There was so much cancer in her body, they could not even tell where it had started.

By that time, I had left college and had gotten an apartment in Richmond, three hours away, where the theatre I was working for was located. I was on a national tour performing as the princess in a production of "The Frog Prince," and in a profound demonstration of God's sovereign grace and mercy, it just so happened that we were doing a few shows in and near Roanoke that September. I was able to spend a few nights at my parents' home, where, by that point, Grandma was pretty much confined to her bed. 

I remember sitting with her while she mostly slept but still had moments of lucidity. She told me about a dream she had had a few nights ago. She could hear a train coming, and she knew she was supposed to get on, but as it was getting closer and closer, she was "rummaging around" (a classic Grandma phrase) in purse for her ticket and could not find it. She told me Pum was on the train, and it came and went without her, because she couldn't find her ticket.  I held her bony hand and looked at her face, skin pulled tighter than I remembered because she had grown so thin. "I'm glad you didn't get on, Grandma. I'm glad I got to see you again."

I sat and cried with my head on her chest as she stroked my hair. "I love you so much, Grandma," I said, something that I had said many times, but never meant as deeply as I did that moment. We talked a bit more, I told her if I ever had a daughter I wanted to name her Alice, and I just sat with her, suddenly sorry for not loving her better while I had the chance. "I'm really going to miss you," I said as the tears streamed down my face (much like they are now, as I write this). There was no denying how close she was to dying. She knew the train would come again for her, and this time, she would have her ticket ready. "I'm going to miss you so much."

And I do. It's been fifteen years since she died, and there are so many times I wish I could have known her in my adult years (I was 19). I wish I could have told her more how much she meant to me, and how much I learned from her. My grandmother was a woman of deep faith. She began each morning by declaring aloud, "This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!"  She was a faithful parishioner at the First United Methodist Church in Ferndale, where she served as a counter (as in, of the offering), and she was a servant to her many widowed friends, driving them around, visiting them and calling them. She loved to play pinochle, she was the best ping pong player I have ever known, and, being from Manchester, England, she taught me the proper way to fix a pot of tea. And she was both frugal and generous; she lived within her means, paid cash for everything (even cars), and frequently send my brothers and me "spending money." She laughed very loudly, sometimes so hard that she cried, and she traveled to Virginia for many of my community, and later professional, theater performances. 

I'm about to pack up her manger scene for another year. As I lovingly and carefully wrap each piece of this diorama celebrating Christ's birth, I am celebrating Alice Biscomb, born April 1911, died September 1994, at the age of 83. I am celebrating her legacy of faith in Christ, generosity, integrity and devotion to her family. Somewhere in my apartment, I have the journal she kept during her courtship and marriage to my grandfather.

Perhaps later tonight, I will sit down with a hot cup of tea and read it again.