I’ve been thinking a lot about my grandma. My mom’s mom, she lived to be 90 years old. She passed away 3 years and 3 days ago.
And I’m very grateful for the fact that I was able to know her in my adult life—I feel like I was given the chance to see her and know her as a person before she passed. But time is a tricky thing, and aging has an odd effect on our relationships. At her funeral, I realized that I had known her for my entire 21 years of life, but she hadn’t even known me for a third of hers. She lived almost 70 years of life before I took my first breath. She went to school, got married, had a job, had children, lost her husband, remarried, retired, traveled—all of these experiences happened before she was my grandma.
What’s wild to me is how 90 years is a long time. And when you live that long, the people who are left to remember you aren’t likely to have known you all those years. How do you preserve yourself, at various stages in your life? How do you control your memory, your legacy? Does it matter at all?
I’m not friends with anyone that I was friends with before the age of 6. The only people who will know what I was like back then are my family members. And when they’re gone, only me. And when I’m gone… that part of my life will be gone too, because no one will have been left who lived it with me. I’m an only child, I don’t have any siblings who will have known me my entire life, even when we’re both old and gray. If I live the longest out of my friends, there will be no one left who remembers our inside jokes, the adventures we shared. Why does that feel so scary? Maybe because it feels so vibrant to me, and I can’t imagine having no one to reminisce with. So much of life is shared experiences.
So, back to my grandma. At her funeral I learned a lot of things about her that I had never known, things that I wish I had known so I could have talked to her about them. For example, after she retired, she and her husband lived in a van and traveled around the US. She was doing van life before it was cool! This was in like the 90s! I wish I could have asked her what she learned, what she saw. Her second husband, my Grandpa Bob, passed away in 2006, so it’s not like I can ask him. Those experiences died when they did.
Does anyone know that Taylor Swift song, marjorie? She wrote it about her grandmother who died when she was 13 years old. In it, she sings “I should have asked you questions / I should have asked you how to be / asked you to write it down for me”. That’s how I feel. Because the more I think about my grandma, the more I think she had figured out how to live the perfect life, and how to leave the perfect legacy.
She wasn’t famous or anything—she wasn’t world-renowned, she’s only a household name in our home. But after she passed, no one could say a bad thing about her. And I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but you couldn’t even if you tried. I never heard her raise her voice, I never saw her get angry, I never even heard her say anything negative about anyone else. She was only ever kind, and empathetic. But I knew she was strong, too. She had experienced a lot of loss in her 90 years of life, but she didn’t let it turn her bitter. She left love in her wake everywhere she went.
And I don’t know how she did it. I get angry, I get upset all the time. I gossip with my friends, I make judgements about strangers. It’s a very human thing to do. But she’s shown me that there must be a way to choose love and empathy, even when I don’t feel those things. I just never asked her how, and now I can’t. She was a very religious woman, so one could maybe say that she found her grace in God. But I’ve also known plenty of Christians who are not nearly as loving and kind as she was. I think she had something special going on.
So, I’m trying to figure it out myself. But it’s hard. She made it look so easy, and it’s anything but. I guess one thing that helps is gratitude. I’m so grateful to have a family that loves me. I’m so grateful to have friends that continue to prioritize our shared time together, despite distance and time zones. I’m so grateful to have a partner who laughs with me, who adventures with me, who has built a shared life with me. I’m grateful to live in a beautiful place, to have a roof over my head. When I think about all of these wonderful things, it feels incredibly obvious. Love is the only thing that matters.
In her last few years of life, my grandma seemed to cry a lot. Maybe she was always that way, and I didn’t notice until I got old enough. But they were never tears of sadness—she would cry when my uncle would say grace at Thanksgiving. She would cry when the bell choir played at Christmas mass. She cried at little things, the things that made her life rich. It’s not just about the lasting impression of love and joy that my grandma left on everyone that knew her—she lived her life with such joy, even for the littlest things. I want to be able to experience my own life that deeply.
So, I guess I share this with you all for a couple of reasons. 1, I wanted to talk about my grandma and how amazing she was, because I miss her everyday. 2, I wanted to share with you all the correct way to live; now you know, so… you’re welcome. 3, I guess I’m wondering if anyone has any advice? If my grandma reminds you of anyone in your life, maybe ask them how they do it, and share what they say with the class. This whole life thing is a group project.
I used to hope that when I died, my name would be known around the world. I wanted to be a household name. I wanted to leave a legacy, change the world somehow for the better. Now, I just hope that when I die, the people that I loved know how much I loved them. And that their memories of me make them smile.
-Abby, granddaughter of Marge
abby j 