Little By Slow

It's a funny thing, my grandmother remarked one morning at breakfast, that by the time you're old enough to be smart and enjoy life, it's almost over.

She was just in her sixties then, roughly the same age I am now, widowed and well off, with a feisty streak. When it suited her, she spoke her mind plainly and with little thought to the consequences. When it didn't, she could be as silent as a grave. More often than not, she said what she was thinking in no uncertain terms and had no patience for social niceties. Honesty is one of the only advantages of getting old, she liked to tell me, nobody pays much attention anyway.

While my mother railed nonstop about my tomboy nature, my grandmother shrugged it off as a phase and scolded only when I didn't clean up before a meal - nail inspection was mandatory and she would often check behind my ears and send me back to the kitchen sink. Nothing shameful about good, honest dirt, she said firmly, but it does not come to the supper table. Blue jeans and tee shirts were perfectly acceptable everyday wear except on Sundays for church, fried chicken was not meant to be eaten with a knife and fork, cussing was best left to grownups and, within reason, honesty was the best policy, At least until you're my age. I can't remember when her hair was anything but snowy white and I never, ever saw her in anything but a neatly ironed house dress, support stockings and sensible black shoes. She tolerated no interruption to Lawrence Welk or Liberace but thought soap operas a tasteless and inane waste of airwaves. She could be as patient as the day is long or as just as easily frustrated. She loved card games - bridge, canasta, hearts - and was a fierce competitor, ruthless when winning and coldly calculating when losing. When she chose to rule, it was usually with an iron hand and no back talk but when she chose to be kind, she could be stunningly so.

She believed in playing the hand you were dealt but that you made your own luck by paying attention and staying focused, that addiction was no more than a dressed up word for weak willed, that money couldn't buy happiness and that there was an afterlife waiting. You get there little by slow, she often told me, just like anything that's really important or really hard, little by slow.