Grandma never had the opportunity to meet her own grandmother; they missed each other by approximately eight years. This came as quite a shock when I was a child, and I remember asking her, “How did you know how to be a good grandma if you didn’t have one for yourself?”
“By gosh and by golly,” was her noncommittal reply, indicating that she was winging it from one day to the next. Grandma loved those types of phrases. In fact, the last thing she ever said to me was, “Let’s play it by ear.”
Thinking about it today in the context of my own adulthood, the rhythms of the family had already been long established. For those of you who know me, you know that I come from a Sunday Dinner family. Woven into our family’s weekly practices were a variety of basic resilience skills: humor, social support, hardiness, optimism, spirituality, and self-efficacy such as gardening and canning.
Memorial Day is a major holiday in our family. For generations, we have visited the cemeteries of our kin to lay flowers and remember them. We grow the flowers in our gardens, lovingly pick and arrange them in vases, and try to remember the special requests. “Grandma asked us to bring her a yellow rose, she did the same for her mother, but Auntie Linda should have something pink.” We deliver them to the gravestones, say a few words or sit with our thoughts, and drive on to the next.
This year, I snapped a photo of the flower arrangement for Grandma’s grandmother – marking our family’s 109th annual remembrance of her. I thought about how this woman, who never met her granddaughter, inspired practices that are still honored and kept today. We remember the people, we tell their stories, we mourn those who join them too soon, and we are grateful to be a part of the rhythm. This is the practice of resilience.
By gosh and by golly, dear reader, I hope you find the practices that resonate with you too. Weave them into your life, pass them onto the children in your world, and build the community that sustains them.