Two weeks ago we said goodbye to my grandmother. She passed away in September at the ripe, old age of 97. Honestly, I thought she would outlive us all.
But she didn’t. Instead she passed away fairly peacefully after insisting that she would stick around to see 100.
She was pretty amazing.
Not that she was perfect. Far from it. Though she did work very hard to exude a persona of perfection. For as long as she was able, she meticulously groomed herself each day. She never stepped out of the house without full hair and makeup. Her outfit was always thoughtfully selected and accessorised. Her home was immaculate. Her yard was pristine. And she made the best pies you ever tasted.
She was also tough to live with. Ask my mother. Or my aunts. That desire for perfection resulted in my grandmother being very critical. It seemed she rarely had anything positive to say about anything or anyone. Most comments were of a critical and negative nature. She NEVER liked my choice of hairstyle … particularly when it was long. I know this because she commented on it every time I visited her. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
I saw a video on Facebook recently by a woman who has a cooking blog, on which she posts videos of herself making recipes. And the woman had recently received a comment about how she should dye her hair if she was going to be posting videos for everyone to see because her gray hair made her look like an old hag. I won’t even get into the fact that with the explosion of the internet and real time anonymous response capabilities, that people have boldly and brazenly decided it’s okay to be all kinds of horrible to one another.
But a comment about needing to dye one’s hair … that is TOTALLY the kind of thing my grandmother might say. Oh, she would NEVER have called someone an old hag – at least not their face … she was too polite for that. And she NEVER would have said anything to a total stranger. But she made critical comments like this everyday to and about her family
She was a tough person to live with.
But, for me, she was also courageous and loving. She was stubborn and opinionated but she knew usually what she was talking about. If she told me she had a better way of doing something … anything …. rolling out pie dough, stacking the dishwasher, sweeping the driveway .. it was because it probably WAS better! That sounds familiar.
Just ask my daughter.
Teresa