Powder and Dust
When I was young, my grandmother, Nanny Casey, had a smooth, round container on her bathroom counter.
Living next door to my grandparents, it was convenient for me to stay with them while my parents were working. They watched over me and doted on me. They taught me how to be silly (but not too silly). They let me explore all throughout their house and hide in the upstairs extra rooms and sit on the kitchen counter to eat snacks.
In their bathroom, my grandmother had a container of dusting powder.
I didn't know it was called dusting powder, nor what it was used for, nor did I ever see my grandmother using it (although I'm sure she did). For my young self, it was something unique that dazzled my senses. It smelled sweet and old, just like Nanny. It had holes that the powder would pour through if you started tilting it. And - my favorite part - there was a big, flat, soft poof that you used to apply the dusting powder to your face.
That poof was so soft and floral and ancient.
Whenever I was running through their house, playing with my brother or my cousins, I would occasionally find myself in the master bathroom. Surrounded by fancy towels and tassels and a shower curtain with a valance, I'd walk up to the mirrored counter and open the dusting powder container, lifting out the poof and feeling its matted softness. I'd poof some powder onto my hands, rub it between my fingers, shake the container to watch the powder slide around, and carefully put it back (now that I have young children of my own, I've started to doubt my memory on that very last part).
As the years went by, my grandparents moved several times. They were never geographically far away and we continued spending time with them often. I grew older and found myself less interested in exploring the random corners of their house. The master bathroom with its mystical dusting powder slowly and unconsciously became a sepia-toned childhood memory.
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In the fall of 2009, my father received the news that his health was beyond repair. For as long as I could remember, he had been stricken with a number of ailments and conditions, from heart disease to rheumatoid arthritis to diabetes. The combination of pills that allowed his physically-deformed body to function was closely balanced throughout the day, but those same pills eventually overwhelmed his poor liver. Cirrhosis of the liver, without ever drinking alcohol.
So his body began to waste away. I think I remember him trying to continue at his job for a little while longer - the work ethic of that wonderful man! - before being too sick to work. And then too weak to stand for long periods. And then too weak to stand up and sit down without our help.
That was my first year of teaching. I would go to work and teach middle school math, then come home and help lift my father so he could go to the couch, or to the chair, or to his bed. My incredible mother was home 24/7, caring for him, but often it would take both of us to move him safely. When he needed to use the bathroom, he would lift his arms so that my mother and I could get on either side of him, pull him to his feet, and carefully drag him to a portable bedside toilet a few feet away. As we moved him across the room, he would try to shuffle his feet along with our steps. His bare legs, so thin and cracked and incredibly dry, would release a fine dust each time he shuffled. Take a step, dust settles to the floor. Take a step, dust settles to the floor.
I remember holding his arm and his elbow, looking away from him as he used the toilet, my eyes focusing on that fine dry powder he left in his wake.
"...til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Soon after, his earthly body failed him completely, and my father passed away.
And I thought about that dust.
It was the dust of a physically broken body
in a spiritually broken world
and yet
God loves dust.
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When Nanny Casey passed away in 2018, I remember sitting at her funeral and thinking about that dusting powder in her bathroom. Ancient and sweet-smelling and soft. Just like her.
Recently, one of my aunts gave me a gift. I don't think she knew just how significant it was.
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