I Don’t Want to Forget Where I Came From or Where I’m Going
Aging in a Swiftly Changing World
I’m 71 years old and still on a learning curve. They tell me that’s a good thing. I’m hoping, like most aging people do, that I’ll be cognitively able to solve problems and identify my options until I die. That’s my gold standard for a life well lived.
Lately, I’ve been reaching back into time by revisiting the past, my past and that of my ancestors as well.
I live in the most technologically advanced time of any era. We’re also socially advanced compared to past societies. Being a woman, I get to enjoy certain freedoms that my mother and grandmother were denied. They had rather grim prospects with almost no personal power.
My generation came along and changed that.
I went to college, earned two degrees, and built a successful career. If my husband had passed away, I earned enough money to take good care of myself and our children. Money is power and I’ve never been financially dependent on anyone else. Having said all the above, I honestly believe that I lost some of the skills that my grandmother had in the process.
So, I’ve been reclaiming a few of those skills. Partly because I think it’s boosting my brain power and partly because I want to remember.
My grandmother only had an 8th grade education, but she had acquired lots of practical skills that my mom’s generation slowly gave up. They were moving into the Jetson era of prepackaged foods and modern conveniences.
So, I’m forced to travel a nostalgic path back to my grandparents, a time of utter self-sufficiency.
My grandmother raised a huge garden. She canned, froze, and dried food. Her pantry and summer kitchen shelves were filled with food. She planted peach trees, had a massive grape arbor, and knew how to buy in bulk long before Costco came on the scene.
She owned a sewing machine and made most of her own clothes.
She could make any recipe from scratch along with jams and jellies. My grandfather could repair or build almost anything. You name it, his handiwork was on it. He could milk a cow, butcher a hog, raise chickens, and get rid of varmints.
They were strong and resilient, not afraid of hard work, and had the battle scars to prove it.
There was always enough food in their house to feed a family for a year. These survival skills were passed down to them from their parents. They grew up in the hills of Kentucky. My grandfather was a coal miner. Their first home was a one room house with a dirt floor. They had a coal oil lamp for light. My grandmother got up every morning come rain or shine and cooked a breakfast of homemade buttermilk biscuits, ham, red-eyed gravy, and grits. She packed the leftovers for my grandfather’s lunch.
My grandfather had black lung.
My grandmother was 14 when she married him. He was 19 years old. They eventually left Kentucky and moved to central Indiana where he got a job in a Philco factory. He worked there until retirement. They never stopped gardening or putting up food. When they retired, they bought a small Indiana farm and continued practicing the skills they’d learned from their parents.
I recognize my grandparent’s values in myself — they may be in my DNA.
I’ve reclaimed some of those skills over the years. They’re not here to advise me, instruct me, or teach me these skills, but I remember the example they set. They’ve influenced many of my decisions over the course of my life.
As I head into old age, my longing for hands-on experiences is strong.
I want to smell the earth, dig in the dirt, repair, and reuse my favorite items, and taste the fruits of my labor. I want less artificiality and more reality steeped in a blissful sense of the appreciation for the basic things of life.
I see peaches in the supermarket and recall the peach trees in my grandparent’s backyard.
A single glass jelly jar reminds me of my grandmother’s grape jelly and the arbor that she cherished. I remember leaning on my grandfather as he turned the handle on the ice cream maker under an old oak tree on a hot summer evening. We’d share bowls of strawberry ice cream made from the strawberries he raised. I’d lay on the quilt my grandmother had made and gaze dreamily through the tree limbs to the sky above. Everything was good at that moment. Everything was perfect.
I was loved.
These days, I enjoy my free time by doing the simplest things. Watching the rabbit in our yard or the goldfinches feeding on my sunflowers. I fight battles against aphids and deadhead my flowers, water sparingly, and prepare food from scratch. I have an appreciation for a larder full of food.
My grandparents always told me that plenty of food was true security.
I love my computer, my cell phone, my clothes dryer, and the grocery store down the street with 1000 different choices of cereal, but I don’t want to forget my past. I don’t want to lose what my grandparents taught me.
Maybe that’s the secret to keeping my brain cells functioning.
Maybe I need to revisit, reclaim, relearn, and reimagine life as it was and life as it could be. The minute I forget is when I’ll lose my edge because then I’ll no longer remember where I came from or why I do what I do. I don’t know, but I’m determined to go into old age with the same strength and courage that my grandparents demonstrated.
Thank you, wherever you are, Nini and Pop.
Teresa is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
