The Easy Life

My Great Grandma arrived in the mail yesterday. I was momentarily confused by the large padded envelope. It was hand addressed to me, with an unfamiliar return address. "Handle With Care" was stamped on it, along with the hand-written phrase "Grandma inside!" and a smiley face. I opened it and discovered that it was indeed a memory of my Great Grandmother who died a few weeks ago at the age of 102.

Great Grandma was nearly 70 when I was born, so although I knew her for many years, she has always been elderly to me. When I got the news of her death last month, I regreted that I knew next to nothing about her life as a younger woman. I hoped the funeral would include some hints of who she had been in her prime.

I was in luck! Turns out, one of my dad's cousins put together a book about my great grandmother in the late 1990's, interviewing Great Grandma and soliciting remembrances from her sisters, her children, grandchildren and others. At the funeral, my father read some of the remembrances of Great Grandma's five children. What I learned startled me. The lonely, cranky old lady that I knew had been a patient, tolerant mother (by the standards of her era anyway), an outdoors woman, a hunter. She had taken in laundry to earn money, and done it all by hand on a wash board. She had preserved nearly all of her own food, and made all of her children's clothing, including their underwear. She loved to camp and could get chickadees to land on her hand. The book clearly contained much more than the several pages my father read at the funeral, so afterward I tracked down my dad's cousin and gave her $5 to print me a color copy of the book and send it to me.

As I read the book cover to cover last night, I was struck most by two things. The first was how much I resonated with her life. I think I'm a bit (a lot?) like her in many ways. I have some of the same passions, and I suspect some of the same foibles. Some time ago, I took her unhappiness in her advanced age as a personal warning. I recognized in myself some of the same tendencies toward self-pity and inertia that I believe contributed to her dissatisfaction late in life. I am thankful that I now have positive connections with Great Grandma as well. I now know that she liked the outdoors, gardening, being a mother, and learning new things, just as I do. I know that one of the qualities that first attracted her to her husband was his kindness, just as my own husband's kindness was one of the first things that attracted me to him.

The second thing that struck me came at the end of the interview with her granddaughter who put together the book. Naturally, I had been comparing the stories of her motherhood years to my own, and thinking primarily of how much easier it is to be a woman today. I was viewing her life as one would view a museum artifact: respectfully and a little in awe, but not quite able to touch the reality of the past. Her final statement caught me up short and made me wonder if I had been indulging in some generational (even cultural) bias. I've been pondering it on and off all day, still not 100% sure what to make of it. For such a short statement, it contains a lot to reflect upon. I share it here in that spirit.

"I grew up the hard way, but really it was easier." -- Opal E. (1903 - 2006)

Rest in Peace, Grandma. I'll join you on the other side some day, and then we can talk. :o)

Brianna and the Bee

Yesterday, the kids and I were perusing the offerings on the newly installed cable TV, which we only get for a month or two every 4 years so that Firmin can catch every possible minute of World Cup soccer he can manage. Anyway, we ran across the 2006 National Spelling Bee on ESPN. Brianna was hooked right away and we watched over an hour of the middle rounds. When we learned that the finals were to be shown in prime time last night, I agreed to let her stay up and watch. We had a wonderful Mommy-Daughter time complete with a bowl of popcorn and a supposedly unabridged dictionary, lol! Her idea -- not mine! -- was to look up the words as the contestants were spelling them, but it proved to be too difficult, especially given the fact that hardly any of the words were in our "unabridged" dictionary!

You know what I liked best about the spelling bee? The fact that the contestants were mostly middle school kids. (I believe kids in grades 4-8 are eligible.) What other event showcases humans in their most awkward, geeky stage of life? We see lots of dimply-faced elementary cuties on TV -- especially precocious ones, as the spelling bee contestants undoubtedly were just a few years ago. We also get to see lots of fresh faced teens, looking confident and cocky. But we don't see the 11 - 13 set all that often. There's just no denying it -- these kids are smack up against the horrors and humiliations of puberty. Their bodies are oddly proportioned, their faces are often spotty, their senses of humor are embarrassingly immature. They hover between childhood and adolescence, and the balance is a tough one to maintain.

But the Bee revealed the best of this stage of life. They were old enough to sit quietly awaiting their turn, yet young enough to be touchingly authentic. Old enough to hold in the tears at the moment of elimination, but too young to pretend they didn't care. One boy exited the stage with a stoic expression, then collapsed in his mother's lap and buried his face in her shoulder. (That sure melted this mom's heart!) These kids had a certain gawky charm that was so real you could feel it right through the TV. I felt very silly at the number of times I actually choked up watching them.

I doubt kids in the midst of middle school misery would have noticed the sweetness that was so evident to me. I know that at that age, I would have been more embarrassed my fellow specimens of puberty than anything. ("Do *I* look like that???") But perhaps they noticed the final few contestants, all of whom were 8th graders aged 13 or 14. (The 13 year olds must be close to 14 by this time in the school year.) No geeky, odd looking kids in that bunch. By 14, the awkwardness is fading fast, and the bloom of adolescence is apparent. The final 3 contestants were all confident, beautiful girls. (Go girls!!) As sweet as those 11 and 12 year olds were, I know it can be a harrowing time of life. It's good to be reminded that it does come to an end!

See and read about the winner of the Bee here.

Ack! Don't even ask me how many misspellings the spell checker just caught in this post, lol!
"embarassing: E-M-B-A-R-A-S-S-I-N-G, embarassing"
DING!
Needless to say, spelling was never my forte.