Remembrance by Anna Elisabeth Kraftson

Hello, My name is Anna Elisabeth Kraftson. I am one of the 7 women named after my grandmother including Meredith Jane, Constance Elisabeth, Laurel Elisabeth, Audrey Elisabeth, Anna (Anya) Elisabeth, and Elisabeth Jane.

The stories and memories about my grandmother are vast and expansive ranging from multiple holidays spent at my grandparents’ Malin Road home getting into mischief with the Stones….traveling to the Tetons as well as family reunions complete with competitive spoon tournaments and canoe football (please do not ask).

However, I’d like to share with you one of my earliest memories of my grandmother. In the summer of 1983, my parents took my brother, Andrew, and I to go see Return of the Jedi. For some strange reason, I began having nightmares that Jabba the Hut was going to consume me. It was about this time that my grandparents came out to visit. Bedtime always was a struggle for me, but now my poor parents had an even greater battle with getting me and keeping me in bed.

During their stay, my grandmother sat with me every night while I fought sleep. She had a rather unconventional, yet very soothing, approach to comforting me. As I laid in bed staring up at the ceiling, my grandmother rubbed my belly with Ben-Gay, fed me apple slices, and read Psalms 23 to me. I remember softly repeating the King James Version with her. Eventually, every night I fell asleep peacefully.

It is such a simple story that truly doesn’t do my grandmother’s legacy justice, but in those moments my grandmother taught me two lessons: I always can seek comfort in the arms of God for the smallest and largest of things because God is there and always present. The second lesson I learned is that people can be a tangible expression of God’s love on Earth and that is clear in my Grandmother’s actions with her husband, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Now when I am kept up at night worrying about my fears, I think back to my grandmother’s soft-soothing fingertips and begin repeating “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.”

I love you Grandmother so very much.