Do Big Things & Do Them Well

I found this letter the other day while cleaning house. It was under the bathroom sink and I can’t think, for the life of me, how it could have gotten there. It’s from my grandmother (“Granny”) and was written when I was very little. Considering Granny passed away when I was about 8, you can guess how old it is. It’s written in blue ink on a single leaf of paper from a small pad which has stayed in remarkable shape. It reads:

“Dear Richard,

The little fellow who stayed with Granny and Granddaddy not because he wanted to, but because we wanted him. He was so lovable and sweet. Now you are so much bigger but still lovable. You are a very dear guy. You can charm your teachers. As you go through school and think it will take so long, remember it is just a little bit of your life. Grow big in ways and size. You have talents that you can use in life. Richard, do big things and do them well so Granny can be proud of the little guy I helped get started. Granny’s love will be with you and help you.”

I wept for nearly an hour.

My memories, unfortunately, of Granny are sketchy at best. She left us when I was very young. To this day, though, I have the lamb she gave me for my sixth birthday. He sits proudly on my chest of drawers (having spent many years as my bedtime companion) minus his nose that a dog chewed off sometime near the end of the Carter administration. I have fuzzy recollections of her killing a snake with a hoe and the sheer admiration and respect she instantly earned from my brother and I. I recall she stayed with us during her final days. Beyond that, most of my memories of my mother’s mother are lost.

And yet when I read this letter I wept.

A phrase in the letter all but haunts me: “... do big things and do them well ...” In all honesty, I think I have spent my entire adult life attempting to do big things, but without any real success. Maybe it depends on your definition of “big.” I have tried endlessly, and with much sacrifice (more than you, dear reader, will likely ever know), to use my so-called talents to do big things. I tirelessly continue to do so. I continue to sacrifice. But I haven’t done any “big things” yet and grow skeptical that I ever will.

In some ways, I am ashamed. In some ways I feel that perhaps I may have let my beloved Granny down. I have dealt with so much loss, sacrificed too much. Then I begin to think that simply surviving is the biggest thing of all. Maybe in her last days, that is all Granny was trying to tell me: “Survive, little guy, survive.” And my faith, which wanes from time to time, at least allows me to acknowledge that Granny’s love has indeed been with me to help me.

Thank you, Granny.