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My grandmother was Sherin Rose Bowen. It's only now, after the fact, that I'm learning the extent of her work and the depth of her heart.

These past two weeks have been surreal. I had returned to my family's home in Rhinelander, Wisconsin on March 14th, taking the train from Chicago to Milwaukee and a bus to Wausau. Somewhere in those days it was mentioned that Grandma had fallen. It honestly did not grab my attention. I knew she was in Nicaragua, I knew a simple fall couldn't hurt her.

Her birthday was on February 28th, the same date as my dad's. I had a photograph, taken last summer at Lake Isadore. Inside of the boathouse, looking out the open doors onto the water, white in monochrome. A door into light. I had intended to have this printed and framed, mailed to the house in Stevens Point. But then, she was in Nicaragua, and it wasn't a rush. I'd give it to her upon her return.

But she fell, and you know how that story goes.

It didn't really hit me immediately. Even after the details started coming in mid-week, numbers and percentages. I honestly didn't think it would play out the way it did. It wasn't really a conviction, but I did expect that she'd pull through, that the appropriate miracle would take place and I would see her knitting at the cottage this summer. So I returned to Chicago and focused on what I could do, objective work, trying to be useful for a family that was badly shaken by what was happening on another continent.

I suppose it was partly the way that it was discovered she was gone. Nothing immediate, no moment you could isolate and analyze and point out exactly what went wrong. Her body was still there, but her consciousness, her soul, had quietly left.

We met in Two Rivers, at the Smith's home. Came together, tried to make sense of the madness that had decended utterly without warning. I still hadn't fully processed it. Cognitively, yes, I knew all of the details and understood how the days had played out. Emotionally, hadn't yet touched it. Still had work to do.

But Sunday morning, the house was halfway empty. Some were at church, the rest were either sleeping or meeting together upstairs. Went to the piano room, shut the door, and poured everything out onto the keyboard. Eulogy for my grandmother. I don't remember ever crying so hard.

I still don't understand why it had to happen like this. I doubt if anyone but God does.

No one got to say goodbye.

The legacy she left is great. Nigh unfathomable. The response you all have had on this website alone is testament to that. To have the story of her life in her own words is a treasure that at the very least indicates God's hand in this. Her accomplishments of the last two decades alone could have taken a lifetime, so, perhaps, she had done all that she had been given to do.

I have the same difficulties and doubts as anyone. But I can't imagine experiencing a loss like this without being able to look past the grave.

One day soon.