My grandmother passed on Thanksgiving of last year. I wrote about it here: Without Grief, There Is No Love. Since then, the memory of my grandmother that circles my head most often is of her hanging up the phone or shutting her door with a “Take care,” to whomever she was saying goodbye.
Take care of what? I remember thinking, as a kid. Take care of who?
Of course, this phrase is, in part, a generational colloquialism that didn’t continue through to my generation; nevertheless, the more I think about it, the more my grandmother’s way of saying “Have a good day,” strikes me now as more of a blessing than merely a goodbye.
Take care, when considered for a beat longer than the passing moment it takes to repeat it, lands heavily, a reminder to slow down. Pausing to digest the meaning of ‘Take care’ allows us to notice where we are, in fact, not taking care: where, instead, we are rushing through, or blowing past, or performing sloppy work. Whether toward ourselves, or our work, or our relations with others, there inevitably are places in our lives in which we are not taking good care.
May this be our invitation to look at those neglected places.
At its core, taking care involves being present and living with intentionality: two things that can be hard to make time for in this distraction-filled world. We live busy lives, cluttered with plans and obligations. And yet, this continues to be the life we have: we really ought to take care of it. We ought to be present and intentional about the ways we interact with ourselves and one another. “Take care,” is our reminder to stop rushing through the motions, even if just for a moment, and to notice what actually deserves our purposeful attention.
My grandmother was a woman who took very good care of the typical things one is expected to take care of: her family, herself, her home. Beyond that, she was someone who took care of life, as expressed by the way she paid attention to it: she took care to notice flowers, to smell and then paint them; to point out hummingbirds; to remember birthdays of distant friends and relatives. My grandmother infused care into every little exchange she had; as I experienced it, she considered all people she came across as being worthy of pausing her day for a conversation.
I wish I could ask my grandmother now what the importance of blessing everyone to take care upon their departure from her presence meant to her. Instead, I can only contemplate what she may have meant; what it represented to me; and pass that along through writing about it. I can honor her wish that I—and everyone else—take care, by slowing my life down enough to actually do so.
So, let us all take this time to pause. Let us all slow down enough to actually take care of these lives we have been gifted with. Let us ask: Where is care needed, right now? And give ourselves enough time to hear the answer.
Take care,
Maggie