It's been a week since my grandmother's 95-year life drew to a close. It wasn't unexpected. If anything was unexpected, it was how long she stayed with us. I had been expecting the news at any time over the previous month as her health had precipitously declined since Thanksgiving and her 95th birthday two days prior. And yet, she had made so many rallies, another one wouldn't have been surprising either.
Granny (as all of her grandchildren called her) was born in a house that was heated by a pot-bellied coal stove and had no running water. The Great Depression started just before her seventh birthday and thus shaped the majority of her childhood. When I was a child, she often took me to the house where she grew up to visit my great-grandmother, who continued to pull water out of a well multiple times a day up until her 90th year when she started living with her daughters. My great-grandmother was a hard working woman who shaped my Granny into the strong woman she was. In turn, she raised my mother to be a smart and strong woman, and well, you can guess the rest. One of my favorite examples of the inheritance of our generational trailblazing is this: Granny was a first-generation high school graduate who then saw her daughter earn a master's degree, and her two granddaughters earn their doctorates.
I suppose that most of us fail to see the life lessons we pick up along the way until something causes us to stop and reflect on the things we know that not everyone else does. Just a few days before she passed, I stopped to contemplate some of my most vivid memories of her, the lessons she taught me in the process, and I penned the following words. Reading them at her funeral was unspeakably challenging (my apologies to those there who had to listen to my sniffling and my frequent and extended pauses to try to compose myself enough to choke out a few more words), but will remain one of the greatest honors of my life.
When I was a kid, pretty much the first thing I wanted to do as soon as I got inside a house was to take off my shoes. When we went to visit Granny’s mother, this was a problem. Her house was heated by a coal stove, so there was always a fine layer of coal dust on the floor, and Granny didn’t want me to get my feet dirty. So she would wrap tissue paper around my feet and secure it with yarn at my ankles. And in doing that, she taught me to be resourceful in solving problems and that there is more than one way to get what you want in life.
I always loved when we would visit Granny’s house at night because she would take me out on the closed-in back porch and show me all the lights sparkling throughout Charleston. And in doing that, she taught me to see the extraordinary beauty in ordinary things.
When Granny would tell the server in the restaurant to pre-heat her coffee mug with hot water, she not only taught me that she had an asbestos tongue, but also that there is nothing wrong with setting expectations and asking for what you want.
When Granny spent hours volunteering at the Culture Center and Congressman Wise’s office and took me along to walk in local parades with the Congressman, she taught me about the importance of giving back to your community and being part of something bigger than yourself.
When Mom, Granny, and I would go to lunch a “disagreement” would often ensue about who was going to pick up the bill. On the occasions that my mom won in the restaurant and then Granny would give me cash to sneak back in mom’s purse, I learned about the fierceness of a mother’s desire to always provide for her kids, no matter how old they are. I also learned to pre-negotiate with both Mom and Granny about who was treating whom when I became a working adult.
When we would pick Granny up to “go to town” and she would be decked out with her jewelry and lipstick, and of course with her hair done, she taught me that it’s always a good time to put your best self forward, but you are the only person you have to do it for.
When Granny was diagnosed with an aortic aneurysm that could “go any time” and she rejected the risky option of a surgical repair, she taught me that while we rarely have control, we almost always have a choice, and in the choice is where we demonstrate our strength.
When Granny told me just last week that if I brought her a pair of red cowgirl boots back from my trip to Texas that she would wear them and we would have a dance party in the front yard, she taught me that laughter is the best medicine, and that hope springs eternal.
Early last month, Granny’s condition lead us to believe she likely wouldn’t see 2018, which would have made her the only one among her parents and siblings to die in an odd numbered year. But wouldn’t you know it, not only did she see the arrival of 2018, she stuck around for a whole week. And in doing so, left me with one last lesson: always live life on your own terms.
I am a strong woman because a strong woman raised by a strong woman raised me. That gift, and the gift of granny’s lessons, will be with me always. And for that I am so grateful.