Grandma’s
partly right—making it to 103 is an accomplishment, no matter what shape you’re
in when you get there. But my grandma got there with class and style. My kids
regularly exclaim, “Great-grandma is cool!” I’ve even caught myself thinking, “Wow, I hope I live to be 103, so
I can be as cool as Grandma.”
But
Grandma’s cool did not begin at 103, or even at 95. In hopes of someday
achieving a cool like Grandma’s, I shall attempt to unpack this compact
expression.
In
Grandma’s case, cool means having
lived history:
Women
weren’t allowed to vote in national elections until Grandma was nine.
Prohibition started when she was ten, and ended when she was 23.
Her
father bought their first car—a red Maxwell-Chalmers—when she was twelve. Her
mom would get out and walk if he went “fast” (over 30). “I rode, but I was
scared,” Grandma says.
The
first time she voted was for FDR in 1932.
Her
husband was a pediatrician, and he was sent to Europe as a doctor in WWII,
leaving her home with three young children.
Grandma’s
marriage was an early casualty of the sexual revolution. When her kids were
teenagers, her husband decided he wanted one of the first no-fault divorces—and
Grandma was the one who got to establish residency in Nevada by living there
alone for six weeks.
She
doesn’t have much use for our new-fangled computer gizmos. “Intel Celeron D processor,”
she read at random from an ad in the paper. “Windows Vista. So what?”
Cool also means having the constitution and will to live
independently:
Grandma
lives in a retirement community in her own apartment. Someone comes in a couple
of times a week to clean for her…but she cleans up before the cleaning lady
gets there.
She
cooks for herself.
She
holds strong political opinions, completely opposite of the rest of her
family’s, and firmly states them at every opportunity. Her family state theirs
back, just as firmly. To visitors from out West, watching this process at
family gatherings is hugely entertaining.
Noting
the crossword puzzle book in the bathroom, I asked her if she’d like a new one
for Christmas. “Oh, yes,” she said. “But it would have to be hard ones—only.”
But
cool, I think, mostly means
reveling in life, and in people:
Grandma
doesn’t spend a lot of energy on what she doesn’t have, or can’t do anymore. We
took the whole family back East to visit Grandma when she was 99 (after all,
when someone is 99, you don’t know how much longer they have left…) “Let me
show you my pride and joy,” Grandma said. She went into the next room, then
emerged, smiling, with a shiny, candy-apple red walker. On the same trip, she
and my daughter were tickled to discover that they were both halfway to their
next birthday: my daughter was 12½. Grandma was 99½.
That
six-week stay in Nevada? Grandma kept a journal. It wasn’t a joyful or fun
time, but she made friends with the people who ran the boarding house, and she
learned to love the West. “It’s a nice day again today,” she noted daily in
surprise. Grandma’s from Western New York. I grew up in the Mojave Desert.
“Grandma!” I exclaimed when I first read that journal. “It’s the desert! It’s never going to rain!”
“I
used to have people I didn’t like,” Grandma says, “but I don’t anymore. Don’t
have time for that, I guess. Now I just like everybody.”
Grandma
remembers and maintains contact with people she knew eight or more decades ago:
a kid my mom used to play with, presumably in his 70s now, sent Grandma flowers
for her birthday. The lady who did my mom’s hair on her wedding day also sent
birthday greetings.
The
caregivers assigned to come in and help her out invariably become her good
friends. The Mormon missionaries, who’ve long since accepted that Grandma’s not
converting, drop by just to say hi and see how she’s doing.
She
maintains extensive, handwritten correspondence. My kids have learned to read
cursive and learned to enjoy hand-writing letters largely because their
great-grandma writes to them.
Grandma
fell and had to live in a care center for a few weeks. When she went home,
patients and employees lined up to say goodbye. It seems like everyone wants a
piece of Grandma’s cool.
Interested.
Independent. Involved. Inquisitive. Inspiring.
Maybe
if I live to be 103, I’ll have time to achieve that level of cool…
