What Grandma Knew...

I am lucky enough to be getting older, officially in my “late 50’s”. And in this last year of retrospect (I had lots of time on my hands), I’ve thought of some of the things I’ve experienced. When I say I’m lucky to be getting older, I mean it. I really should have died on several occasions, but for providence, I did not. So here I sit, relatively intact, typing out some of the lessons that I have connected to my grandmother. Things I didn’t understand until now.

Grandma always wore a sweater because she didn’t want to turn up the heat. As I tootle around my apartment, with a sweater on, in between the spring and summer seasons, I realize now why she did that. No point in warming up the place when the sun will do it for free later. Or conversely, preserving the coolness that will be a relief when the day warms up.

Grandma kept her fraying towels. “They’re just fine.” she would say. She hung a “nice” set in the guest bathroom, but we were given the threadbare ones to use. As an 18-year-old, the perception that my grandmother, being older, had lots of money was inaccurate. She had what I considered many nice things…furniture, collectables, and all the comforts of home. What I know now is that much of it was gathered over her many years and that the keeping of these things, even though they were worn, meant she didn’t have to buy more. As I ponder my 20+ year old…fraying towels, I have to laugh. “They’re just fine.” I think to myself.

Grandma used a handkerchief. When I asked her why she didn’t use boxed tissues, though she kept a box out for guests, she told me they were very expensive. She explained that laundering (and then ironing) her hankies didn’t fill up her trash can with one-use paper tissues. She didn’t use paper towels or napkins either. She had a small bag of rags, from used up kitchen towels and sheets, that she used for cleaning. I, myself, keep a big ole bag of cotton rags that, when eventually they are tattered beyond their current usefulness, can still be given away to an animal shelter or craft exchange.

Grandma kept old letters from her brothers who fought in WWII in Europe and Iwo Jima. She had 7 who, all but one, returned from the war. When she passed away and my sister and I were tasked with sorting out her belongings, we found 7 neatly beribboned packets of letters, exchanged during their time in the service. As the sisters-in-law pillaged the rest of the house for “keepsakes”, the 5 remaining brothers each held their bundle of letters with tears flowing freely.

Grandma always had a little bowl of candy in her living room. Growing up, our family never had candy in the house except on Halloween. Sadly, I did not know my grandmother until my late teens, so asking her for a piece felt naughty, indulgent. Now, a grandmother myself, I keep a small bowl of candy out as well. My granddaughter heads straight to it when she comes to visit. It reminds me that there is always sweetness in the world and that having an occasional treat keeps life’s demons at bay.

Grandma didn’t like to talk about the past, imparting only bits and pieces of the cruelty she had endured if she thought it appropriate. No martyr, she preferred to be grateful that she continued to abide her humble life and that grace had seen her through to better days.

Grandma kept her house tidy. Everything had a place. I only ever saw a coffee cup and small saucer in her kitchen sink. She never let dirty dishes gather or clutter to take over a room. Though she kept things that I thought odd at the time; used gift wrap and ribbons, old magazines, assorted skeins of yarn, and packing peanuts among them, all were kept neatly out of sight. I believe she knew intuitively what modern psychology has proven recently; that physical clutter can cloud the mind. I know I feel better when I have straightened up my house.

Grandma was a recycler because she lived during the Great Depression. She saved soap chips to re-melt into new bars. She washed and kept the Styrofoam trays that meat is packaged with to reuse in assorted ways; a place to set a paintbrush between strokes, to put under a plant to protect the tabletop it sat upon, a place for muddy gardening gloves. She rarely threw things away knowing that it had a use beyond its original purpose. I find myself doing much of the same. I made a picnic table from the boards removed from an unsafe deck. When I buy plants, I keep the pots to use for repotting other plants. I have built new things from scraps of a remodeling project.

Grandma was a donator because she knew that if she couldn’t find a use for it, someone else could. Not just clothing. Even when her old magazine piles got too big, she took them to the library or her doctor’s office. She saved the paper bags from her groceries, for the sturdier nature, to transport all manner of things. While I use my own reusable grocery bags, I am occasionally caught without them, so I have a small stash of plastic bags. If it gets to be too many, I will refill the box across the street at the park for those who also forgot to bring a bag for their dog’s leavings.

Grandma tried to repair first before she discarded a blender or television that quit working. Sadly, this craft is dying in our disposable society. I became a tinkerer and have fixed many things that I otherwise would have had to purchase again. There is a great gratification, not to mention money saved, in repairing a thing.

I know my grandmother was born and raised during a time when thrift was a must. After divorcing her abusive husband with 3 small children in the 40’s, she didn’t have marketable job skills, but she learned typing and dictation and worked as a secretary on a very meager salary for a few years. She met and married a kind man, whom I only met once but don’t remember, to take care of her and her children. It was not a union of love. Once the children were grown, they divorced. He provided housing for her in a nice little trailer park until her death when it would then go back to his family. Grandma lived there, with only her social security check for income, for many years until she passed peacefully in 1998. I never would have guessed that she lived so meagerly. I did not understand then, as a young adult, the sacrifices she made. I do now, however, grasp her parsimony in looking back over my own life and the lessons she subtly taught me by her example.

New and shiny is all well and good, but useful is just as fine and, in my opinion, better.