Day 8 of 31 Days of My Single Life

my grandma

I've spent this afternoon working on my grandma's Shutterfly book. I got so much done and I'm so grateful! I still need to pull a few more pix, finish some of the pages. But I think I can get it done in time for Saturday's memorial.

Thinking about my grandma's life makes me consider the balance between the two parts of all of our lives: the past and the present.

I love history. I love thinking about people in the past as real people like today, just wearing different clothes. I've been going through my grandma's photos--a whole Rubbermaid-full--and finding photos of the whole family many moons ago.

I look at photos of my mom as a teenager, with her straight, un-permed hair, and it's this weird juxtaposition between who I know her to be now, over 40 years later, and wondering how much of who she is today was who she was then, before life happened.

I look at photos of different people, knowing where their futures led, and realize that although they may look different--in the photos they might have beehive hairstyles or bell-bottom slacks--they were dealing with (or about to deal with) the same relationship heartache that "present-day" people do. Their lives were real too. Not some glossed over movie print.

my grandma (on the right) with my great-uncle and great-aunt

But all that history of my grandma's life, all that progression from 1927 to the present day--is that what mattered to her? Or did the present matter more? Yes, she loved her brothers and sister who died. Yes, she collected many memories from trips with her friends. That did matter.

This summer I had wanted to spend time with her, writing out her memories to compile in a book. For one reason or another, it didn't happen. Part of me is regretful, but a huge part of me says, I was there when she was dying. Literally. I was there. I can have no regrets. And with that, I believe--I KNOW--that Grandma cared more about her family in the present, and spending time with us when she was alive and could come to birthdays and play Canasta with us, ie. she cared more about LIVING, then she cared about preserving her past.

I'm really not trying to justify myself--it kinda sounds like I am. Rather, because I value history so much, her death has made me rethink things and realize that what my grandma valued were these last years of spending time with her family. Living in the present is not a bad way to live.

I'm not sure why my hair looks weird.

Nice little bow to wrap this up: I think a person's life is so much more interesting if you know their history. But the worth of a relationship and the meaning of a person's life consists of the present, because that is where their heart is receiving and responding in kind today.