"Honey, you've got to call 911". Those were the words my grandma said when I came to her room and she couldn't get out of the bed. She was too sick. The room was spinning. She couldn't stand. She needed to go. She felt like dying.
Flash forward 7 minutes. She's sitting up. Fixing her hair. Trying to get dressed. She wanted to look proper. She couldn't go to the hospital, no matter how bad she felt or how sick she was, looking like that. She needed to "get ready".
Makes me laugh even now.
She went to the hospital and stayed there for days. Finally figured out the problem and sent her home with a script.
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It's never bad to look your best and give your all. My grandma lived to 103. She was on Earth for 37,038 days. A blip in the universe. You didn't even know she existed, or how much she meant.
She always wanted to look her best and be her best. Even when you had to call 911.
She didn't need a lot of help. She was a pretty ole' gal with a lot of personality.
She taught me a lot.
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1. Always love the Lord.
I'm not always the most religious person and in fact I don't believe loving the Lord has anything to do with religion. My atheist brother would disagree, but to each their own. I'ma let him do him, I do me, and you do you. But I love the Lord.
She went to the same church for over 75 years. The same one. And hated that she couldn't make it there much late in life. To make up for it we watched thousands of hours of preaching on TV. Thank God for Joel Osteen.
2. Always wear your Sunday Best.
Even if it's time to die, look like you're ready to arrive.
This is something I honestly fail at. I always just look like me. I like being me and am comfortable looking how I look. It's not like I have a lot of nice clothes anyhow - I just have what I have.
3. Plan something to do tomorrow (even if you're planning for someone else and just supervising).
This one is HUGE for me.
I don't always have plans for tomorrow, but what I do have is a routine. I know when I get up and drink a bottle of water. I know when I usually wake up. I know when I use the restroom. I know when I crack the first beer. I know when I eat throughout the day (7-9am, 10, 11, 1pm, 4, 7, until 2am). I look forward to those things. Especially when I've lost everything and am wondering what in the world I'm going to do tomorrow.
4. Don't look back.
She lost her baby daughter when the girl was only 2. Other than that, I never really knew her to dwell on anything from the past. Not her 50 year marriage, not her car accidents, not her slips and falls, not her breast cancer, not her addiction to pain medication because of the a fore mentioned, not anything. Everything was what it was and will be what it will be.
"Do you remember when they touched down on the moon?" yes.
"Do you remember the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7?" yes.
"Do you remember the great depression?" yes.
She lived through everything but pretty much didn't look back on anything. Unless of course, it could provide a lesson of some kind.
"Honey, you'll get over her. I had a boy once and he gave me a ring. It was a beautiful ring and he was a nice boy. But I lost the ring in a drain." - her way of saying things come, things go.
5. Peanut Butter and Chocolate can help you live a long life.
She wouldn't do much, once I got there, in the kitchen. That was a good thing.
There was this one time when she thought she smelled something weird coming from the kitchen. She got up and went to use some fragrance - spray - and picked up a can of PAM, the cooking spray, instead. Sprayed it all over the room. The vinyl floor was slick as glass and I happened to catch her spraying it. "WHAT ARE YOU DIONG?!?! DONT MOVE!!!" Ran to the bathroom the grab a towel she could walk over on. BAM! That's all I heard. I knew what happened. Call 911.
But when it came to peanut butter and chocolate (and I should add, Coke-a-Cola), she had it down pat.
She'd eat a couple spoons a day of PB and easily down 3 or 4 small candy bars. Plus, if there wasn't any Ice Cream in the house, the good kind called Moose Tracks, she was not going to be happy. I swear she lived on that for years. That and that alone. Except for the occasional can of chili, her special hamburger, and, being in the south, white beans and buttermilk cornbread.
Peanut butter will extend your life. Or it did hers.
6. Life is short.
It doesn't last forever. You think 37, 038 is a long time, but it's only 103 years.
Shakespeare has been dead for 400 and yet we're still talking about him. He doesn't care. He doesn't even know probably. He's dead.
What we do now, right now, matters. If we make a name for ourselves for something we've done good, all the better. There were 40,000 slave Israelite coming out of Egypt, the only one we know is Moses. The rest no one even cares about. A backdrop to a story.
I don't want to be a backstory. I don't want my grandma to be one either. That's why I taped our conversations and am writing about her on Paul King's Pocket Lint right now.
7. Not everyone is who they say they are.
I had a cousin at the time I was taking care of her who lived close by. He was the pastor of a pretty large church. It was just a short drive from where we lived. I went to see him at his church after taking care of her for about 9 months. "How come you never come by? Bring over the great grandchildren?". I never saw the guy again. Except for that time he showed up with his father, my uncle, to play golf. Golf over grandma. Welcome to the family.
8. When all else fails, take a nap.
My grandma was the master of the nap. She could sleep on a passenger train going 90 on shaky rails with the steam whistle blowing all the time. She didn't care.
She would get so mad when she wasn't up and awake early. Most of her week was ruined because she got up too late and couldn't get anything done. But she really didn't do anything. So, she took a nap.
When she was feeling down, she took a nap.
When she wasn't feeling well, she took a nap.
When she got off the phone, she took a nap.
Played with the cat for 20 minutes? It's time for a nap.
I love this one because I always thought, my entire life, that it's stupid that as a child you were always "put down" for a nap. In the early days of school they mandate you take a nap.
Then, without warning and once you've spent the first 6 or 7 years of your life taking a nap, they deprive you of your nap and expect you to just power through. So unrealistic.
When I was in school, I napped all the time. I slept all the time in class. Give me half a reason to take a nap and I was going to.
That was my grandma.
By the time I started taking care of her I had pretty much grown out of the nap. Life happens. But when she re-introduced me to the joys of napping, I was all in.
9. If you can't sleep in bed at night, get up.
Tossing and turning will not do you good. I used to hear her stirring around and have to get up only minutes after I had gone to bed myself. She couldn't sleep. She wasn't going to lay there and roll around.
It's better to get up and just take a nap than to lay in bed all night tossing and turning. That's a great lesson because you'll still be tired, and you'll still need a nap later in the day, but you won't be as sore as you might have been had you tossed and turned.
Tossing and turning takes a lot of effort. Watching TV, falling asleep and taking a nap takes little to none.
Get out of bed.
10. Stick up for yourself and when you can't, find a blocker.
The entire family wanted her out of her house. Wanted her gone. Wanted to sell the house and take the money. She wouldn't leave. She wasn't going anywhere and she sure as heck wasn't going anywhere as long as I was there. It was so bad before I arrived that when I did arrive almost every piece of furniture in the house had a small piece of paper taped to it with a name on it - my aunts and uncles. What they would get when she died (again, buy experiences). Sick.
She was not afraid to go tooth and nail with any of her kids and tell them exactly what she thought and where she stood - and where they could go if they didn't like it. She was not the kind of woman to put up with much, much less foolishness.
11. When you can't find anyone to do it for you, and you're capable of doing it yourself, do it.
She was in an accident. Pulled in front of a dump truck in her small car. Had to be cut out. Had to have a life flight to the hospital. She was 93. She died. They brought her back to life. She had medical bills. Huge medical bills. She wanted to sell the rental home her and my grandpa bought 30 year prior. No one would help her. The family was disappointed she lived. They'd rather both sell than sell one to pay bills and wait to sell the other after she died.
They'd have to wait.
She didn't get a real estate company. She did it herself. At 94, she put a "For Sale By Owner" sign in the front yard and sold the house herself. Negotiated her own contract. Got $10,000 over fair value. Paid her bills.
She didn't have to wait. She was still capable.
12. Laugh all the time.
I can't tell you how much fun we had together. I can't even begin to tell you how much we laughed. You're just going to have to listen for yourself and hear.
That was who she was. Look at the picture. She loved life. Not always. But believe me, when we weren't fighting and arguing, we were laughing.
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When I went to live with her and take care of her for those 3 years, 96 97 98 years old, she basically rescued me. I needed her as much as she needed me. I just lost everything - again.
Those years were tough. Very hard. I'm going to tell many stories and teach many more lessons from them.
But that's what this blog is all about.
SHE took me from pocket lint to pocket change.
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