"It's cheap, but that's pretty good stuff."
There she was with a chain wrapped around her wrist so tight she couldn't get it off.
I didn't know how she had gotten it there.
One minute she's trying on some necklace, and the next it's wrapped around her wrist like prison chains.
She was part of the chain gang.
At least it wasn't around her neck.
I'm talking about my grandma of course.
--
I hadn't lived with her very long when that happened.
I would soon find out that her mischievousness wouldn't end there.
She was forever and always doing something she knew she ought not ever do.
She made life fun and interesting like that.
"You shouldn't climb that old wooden ladder."
She didn't care - she went to the top.
I tried and got to the second rung before figuring out that the thing wobbled way too much for my taste.
It had to be 30 years old - if not more.
She had a mission.
She was going to clean the cupboards.
And clean them she did.
She just didn't expect I would be home from work as early as I arrived.
--
"We'd lose an arm..."
Playful.
That was her attitude most of the time.
Until the time I arrived to stay a while, I hadn't know this woman.
This was an entirely new grandma.
Sure, I'd been around her my whole life.
But she was always busy in those days being wife, mother, baby sitter.
Now she was 96 years old and just didn't really care about much except what she wanted to care about.
A couple of years before I arrived she had sold one of the two houses she owned.
Without a real estate agent.
The entire family said she'd get ripped off or never sell.
They apparently knew her the way I remembered her.
That wasn't who she was now.
Now she was an independent, tough as nails negotiator.
She sold the house and made a lot of money on it.
Down economy and all.
--
One year at Christmas time I got her a little stocking and hung it on the wall. I put some candy and chocolates in there for her - maybe some lotion for her hands.
I told her she was not to go near it as Santa would be coming in the morning and she didn't want to disappoint him.
Sure enough I came around the corner a couple hours later and she was in the process of trying to take a peek.
I startled her and she ended up ripping it off the wall.
Oh man, was I ever angry!
"What are you doing? Can you not just ...."
But she was as curious as she was mischievous and she never meant no harm.
Plus she loved chocolate.
--
"That's how I get my life mixed up."
So there we were, me trying to untangle her from this chain when she says something that's on her mind - I know she's being real because she doesn't know I'm recording any of this for one, and two, she whispers it...
Later she would see how simple it was to operate.
We all feel like that sometimes.
I have said many times "I just don't navigate life well."
People have houses and cars and yachts and all kinds of things.
Every building you see was built by someone with more money than I may ever know.
But at some point the chain has to come off.
Freedom has to happen.
Open Doors and Opportunity will present itself.
So it will.
Someone will help - someone has helped - and then I will help someone else.
Maybe I'm already helping someone.
--
"Well how did the idiot ever get it ..."
She was my friend. And we had so much fun together.
I finally got the chain off of her. Her response? "Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU! I thought I'd have to live with it all of my days."
When I think about chains and living in them all of my days, I'm grateful for the Open Doors and Opportunity that's coming. Because I know it's only a matter of time.
The chain that you have on your life won't be there forever. Keep hope. Keep looking for Open Doors and Opportunity. Help. One day you will find it - and you'll be ever so grateful.
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