My grandmother, Ruth Johnston Perkins, died in May less than two weeks before the birth of her great-granddaughter. I wrote a remembrance of her this summer titled "A Grandmother's Life, Death, and Resurrection," which has just been published at The Imaginative Conservative.

An excerpt:

Grandma’s courage at the end and the birth of our daughter have both been sources of great comfort to our family. Ultimately, however, they are not enough to defeat death—not nearly enough. The manner of Grandma’s passing reveals the depth of her faith and character, but Grandma’s dignity did not defeat death. Though her legacy lives on in the name and life of our daughter, it does not keep Grandma alive in any way other than a metaphorical sense. As the psalmist grimly and correctly observes: “…even the wise die; / the fool and the stupid alike must perish / and leave their wealth to others. / Their graves are their homes forever, / their dwelling places to all generations, / though they called lands by their own names. / Man in his pomp will not remain; / he is like the beasts that perish.” Nothing Grandma did, and nothing we do, could overcome death. Grandma faced death: Death took her. 

Death’s victories, however, are inevitably Phyrric.

You can read the rest here.