Our theme for the month of June is “older and wiser.” Writers were asked to write a response to one of their previous pieces. Today, Carlisle responds to her September 2023 post, “An Open Letter to My Cat.”

I am named after my grandmother. She was Jane Carlyle Patete and I am Carlisle after her, as she was Carlyle after her grandmother. She passed away on September 15, hours after I sent in this piece to be published two days later. It was too late to change it and there were no words for the grief I felt. I couldn’t have turned a eulogy around in two days. But now, every time I think of her passing, I remember the silliness of this piece about the cat who once wreaked havoc on her basement furniture one Thanksgiving.

“My grandmother was a very special lady and we were close.” This was what my mom told me to write to my boss and friends who didn’t know her or me very well yet to let them know why I would be taking time off and time away. 

“A very special lady.” She led the Women’s Ministry of the Presbyterian Church of America. She got a speeding ticket on the way home from visiting me at my birth. She woke up at 5 a.m. to read her Bible. She prayed as she drove around for her errands. She loved to host but she preferred Bob Evans mashed potatoes to homemade. She was a board member of Covenant College. She was the yellow rose of Texas, blooming in Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. Her favorite hymn was “In Christ Alone.” She was so quick witted and sarcastic, so unexpected from a five-foot Southern belle like herself. 

“We were close.” My grandmother was outspoken. Passionate. She prayed beautifully over us even after Alzheimer’s had taken away some of her personality—that remained. She came for as many musical performances and grandparents’ days as she could, always with a card in handwriting you’d need my dad to help decipher. She loved having her nails done and instilled the same desire in me. She was a stalwart reminder of God’s love and grace with us—especially when my cousin spilled black coffee all over her white rug (multiple times). She loved us a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck, and told us so all the time. 

After she’d passed, I called my sister nearly every day for a week. We cried about how much we missed her, how it grieved us she wouldn’t be at our weddings or our brother’s graduation. Or how thankful we were that she knew her first great-grandbaby. Mostly that she wouldn’t see us achieve the things she prayed we would. 

Today, I live in the town where she had once planned to retire, the town where she loved to travel to when she was on the board of the college she hoped one of her grandchildren would attend. I know she would be so happy that I ended up here, so happy that I ended up with a good man, a good partner. Even though she did not live to see these things, I think she knows the legacy she left me—not just in her name. Stewarding that legacy is something I’m honored to do. I know she would be proud of the stewardship I have shown. And I know she would be proud of every piece I’ve written here—even the silly little ones about how much I love my cat. 

Carlisle Patete

Carlisle Patete (‘22) came to Calvin University from the mountains of North Carolina and graduated with a double major in film & media and creative writing. After brief stints in Los Angeles and Chicago, she now resides in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she enjoys sweet tea on her front porch and identifying every tree and bird she runs into on any hiking trail.