Both of my grandmothers were strong women but they were very different people. My paternal grandmother did whatever job she had to in order to keep her family fed after grandpa passed. I learned to enjoy cooking and how to mend clothes from her. Grandma was strong, smart, creative, and her family was everything to her. I loved to hear her tell me about how she and my grandfather met. He was a salesman and she was a school teacher in a small school house. She was living in the South West and he lived on the East Coast but he would make a detour with each business trip so he could court her. At the end of her day, as she dismissed her students, she would see him sitting on a horse at the top of the hill waiting for her. She told me the story several times and each time I found it to be very romantic. Grandma said he was the love of her life and she never remarried after he passed. From Grandma G I learned to value the simple things in life, appreciate tradition, love history, value the spiritual side, and that the people in our life is what is most important.
My maternal grandmother was a different person altogether but I thought she was amazing. Grandmother was a very intelligent woman who was full of energy. She had a career as a nurse, loved to do needlework, paint, and cook. Grandma taught me not to be a slave to a recipe. When she was 70 she taught me to dance. I loved her telling on how she met my grandfather. Grandpa was in the Navy and one day, while visiting a friend at the hospital, he saw grandma. He went out of his way to try and catch her attentions but she would just brush him off. Consistent flirting and invitations to go out where ignored or declined quite abruptly. As weeks passed, she continued to turn him down and, being grandma, I imagine she left no room for negotiation. He was persistent. Grandma told me that grandfather "had a reputation as a ladies man" and he was a terrible flirt. She laughingly told me once that "He was so full of himself.'" However, grandfather persisted and each day when she got off duty she would walk out of the hospital to find him waiting for her at the base of the hospital steps so he could walk her to her bus. After several weeks she finally agreed to a group outing, but it was to include her friends. I asked her once what changed her mind. She smiled and said "He was so polite and tried so hard to impress me that I took a second look and realized he really was a good man. When I realized how much I enjoyed his company he just started to grow on me." From Grandma H I learned not to get stuck in a comfort zone and don't judge others because no one is perfect, don't take myself too seriously but value who I am, always look for ways to improve myself, never stop learning, and the most important lesson I learned from her is that actions speak louder than words.
From each woman I gained two different life perspectives. I feel so sorry for children caught up in family disputes. The kids who are segregated from one side of their family lose the opportunity to gain that broader perspective and never know part of their heritage. I am grateful for both of my grandmothers and feel blessed because of their differences. Each gave me wonderful memories. Growing up, I viewed one as stability and the other as adventure but the commonality is that they were strong women with good values. More important, I knew that either of them would each be there for me if I needed them.
It is unfortunate that some people can't accept any view except their own. If someone lives their life differently from us, that doesn't necessarily make it bad. It only makes it different. Yet there are those who insist that their way is the only way.
They say life is art. When I hear this I think of how a canvas painting is comprised of a variety of colors and shapes. Some paintings appear to change their view depending on the light or the viewing angle, almost as though they were two dimensional. I think that people who refuse to open their eyes and their hearts to view the world outside of their own existence live their lives in a one dimensional reality.
Grandma G was more of a black and white thinker but when grandpa died in era when women were not welcomed in the work force. Her outlook and her strength is why she and her children survived. Grandma H used to tell me the story of the blind men and the elephant. It was a favorite that I never tired of hearing but, as an adult, I recognize it came with a lesson I was meant to learn:
The Blind Men and The Elephant.
A king has the blind men brought to the palace, and they are asked to describe
an elephant. Using their hands the blind men felt the elephant. When each blind man had felt a part of the elephant, the king went to them and said to each: 'Well, blind man, describe the elephant to me."
Each man gives a different description.One man felt the head says the elephant is like a pot. Another who felt the leg asserts that an elephant is like a tree. Yet another who felt the trunk asserted that an elephant is like a snake and the descriptions continued with each blind man describing the elephant based on what part of the elephant's body he touched.
The men cannot agree with one another and were arguing heatedly over the question of whose description is accurate. The King said "You are all correct and you are all wrong. Each of you only see one part of the elephant yet you rant in complete ignorance because one cannot describe the whole until one has learned the total of it's parts
These blind men are like some people who are blind and ignorant to any views except their own. Due to their ignorance they argue and fight because, instead of truly seeing the world before them, each insisted on maintaining his own reality.
Two very different, but incredible, women who I am blessed to call Grandma taught me to step back and understand that life is like abstract art. It doesn't doesn't care about coloring inside of the lines. Thank you to my grandmothers and to my parents who taught me that common interests may get the conversation started but it is our differences that make life interesting.
