I found my Grandma's digitally preserved wedding album last night. ( Thank you Aunt Betsy).
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There comes a time when you just cannot possibly make room for another book in a house. Libraries were created for a reason. Slinging heavy boxes labeled "HOS/CDS books" around in the garage, trying to decide what to give to charity, I decided to tear back the packing tape to see what my children might be missing if and when it was donated. My eye immediately caught my grandma's smiling 20 something face. So bright. So happy. So young. So vibrant. So excited. Why had I put this with my children's books?
I ended up going through all the books. Now most of them have made a way into my house...but that is another story...
Grace and happiness hide themselves from us. Why is it so hard to hang on to these two things as we get older? My grandma has lived her life, is still living her life. Married young to an intelligent, handsome boy. Raised three children, no...make that four children (the last one was 14 years younger than the first). Had money. Husband worked for the pentagon. Husband got sick. Not sure I know the whole story. When I was little I was told that his foot got infected while traveling abroad and there was a series of blood clots that went to his heart. He had a few heart attacks. The last of such left him debilitated. My Dad was in Medical School at the time, engaged to marry my mom. My Dad's youngest brother would have only been 10 years old at the time?? His two sisters were in the middle. High school maybe? Their Dad lived. Lost all ability to talk and take care of himself. Had a hard time walking, etc. Lost alot. They all lost alot. I remember when I was young my Grandpa would repeat the same phrase over and over again during our conversations. He liked to eat frozen orange juice. He liked to sit on his row boat behind their house in Minnesota. My brother was 9, maybe 10 years old when he finally passed away. But wait, how did she do it? How did my Grandma survive? I am sure it wasn't easy. I am sure she must have been very angry with her situation. But, she created her own company. Sold it many years later for millions of dollars. Bought the company back (it was her baby) for so much less and tried to go for it again. Couldn't quite make it work. Her youngest is still trying to make it work. The in between, the details, are not very flattering.
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But what of grace and happiness? There was a lightness (lack of heaviness) of being in my Grandma's wedding pictures. Her smile seemed to come so easily. The laughter rolls off the tongue. The hurt feelings diminish with a hug and a joke. This is why it found its way into the children books. Children know this language. Children understand this way of being.
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That very same night I also found my wedding album. We hadn't yet been stashed with the children books but I wondered how long it will take. The decisions, the happenstance, the meetings, the moments, the trying to do and be the best, the forgetting to be the best, the agony, the triumphs, the life. It all adds up and in the end we wind up being very different beings. Heavy. Weighted down. I think even our smiles change.There are so many different times, different phases, different memories, different places - all of them changing us just a bit. Molding us.
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I think this is one of the reasons I cherish my children. They are still light. The happiness and grace oozing out of them is amazing! Their smiles are a delight.
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I have gazed upon my Grandma's wedding album now a few times since last night. In the pictures she is at least 15 years my junior. I look on her as if she is my child. Experiencing the happiness that life has to offer. I wish her this same happiness and lightness of being throughout her entire life. I plead with her. Hold on to this. Don't forget this. You are radiant. Your life will unfold, there will be hard times (too hard to imagine). It is up to you to decide to live it with grace and happiness. It's up to you to fight against the anger, the sorrow, and the loneliness. I longingly want to hold her. Smile at her a true smile. Lock eyes with her. Try to help her not forget....And then I laugh and think to myself that I should just take my own advice and it would all be okay. To be light. To radiate happiness. To give grace. There is not a way to undo, to go back, to live a different life. The only way through is forward. So I challenge me, challenge all of us, to go forward with a lightness of being, radiating happiness and giving grace to all those who ask.
**Dedicated to the only woman I know that constantly kept grace and happiness in her back pocket and still to this day has a lightness of being to be rivaled. I love you Aunt Tammi. ***