I try to find those rare moments any more when I can squire away some time with my 105-year-old grandma, just to pick her brain “one more time.” I admit that I do get anxious. At her age, you just never know how many of these moments we have left.
Just a few weeks ago, I drove the four hours out to visit her for a weekend. My husband and I arrived there a little bit later than she expected, and when we walked in the door of her home, the first thing she did was admonish me, just like she did when I was a child and did something not favorable to her.
“I was imagining that you were dead on the roadside or something,” she told me. “All I could think of was having to go to a funeral for you two and how many people that would affect.”
Grandma has always been rather over-dramatic when she gets upset. I just suspect that she thinks death is closer to her than to me at this point, and if I had been in a tragic car accident en route to her home, a funeral for me would have pre-empted any possible end-of-life celebration for her. Hey! If I can contribute to her continued longevity, I’ll do it! (However, my own premature death would not be one of the ways I would contribute to that end!)
After Grandma settled down, we decided to head out to dinner at her favorite restaurant. It amazes me how she can still navigate the steps outside of her front door more readily than some 60-year-olds I know. She also got up into my SUV on her own accord, with my husband’s hands at the ready. “I can do it,” she told us. And she did! She pulled herself up into the SUV. “Let’s roll. I’m hungry,” she demanded.
At the restaurant, she told us we could have anything we wanted. “I’m buying.” Her favorite phrase whenever someone comes to town to visit her. (Bear in mind that the dining venues in her small Midwestern town consist of A&W Root Beer, McDonald’s, Sonic, Pizza Hut, and a locally-owned family buffet and diner.)
During the meal, we began to converse about a host of topics, from growing old to Bob Dole to politics. Her years of wisdom poured as smoothly as the hot coffee from the pot.
In serving as a role model to your children, she advises, “Just lead a true life. Your kids will respect you. Sure, they will act mad at you now for things, but they will remember the true lessons later on in life.”
When it came to raising her own two sons, she did admit that she did most of the talking, disciplining, and advising. However, when Lloyd, her reserved husband, spoke, it meant something.
“He did not speak as much as I did,” Kora mused. “But when he did say something, by golly, you made sure you listened.”
On the topic of funerals, death, and dying, a subject that has been popular with her for the last 20 years, as “you just never know when your time is up,” Grandma told my husband and I, while navigating a forkful of mashed potatoes and gravy into her mouth, “If you cry at my funeral, I will just die.”
She continued, “Go and be happy. Don’t be sad that I am gone. I will either be in Heaven or in Hell. I really do not understand death, however. Maybe it isn’t really the way they say it is. I mean, with the number of people who keep dying, you’d think Heaven would be full by now.”
As the conversation leaned towards politics, she professed to be a strong Republican. After all, she has known Bob Dole forever and was his mom’s best friend back in the day. Bear in mind that this is just her opinion, but she does not think that President Obama is doing very well. She does not let that weigh heavily on her mind, however, until I bring up the fact that my 15-year-old son is a staunch Democrat.
“My God!” she proclaimed. “How did that happen? (Suggesting it was more of a disease than an opinion.) I am going to have to speak to that boy. Seriously? A Democrat? Well, he’ll soon learn and eventually come around. Remind me to speak to him when I see him next to ask him why he is a Democrat. I want him to promise me on my death bed that when he is eligible to vote, he votes Republican. Otherwise, I may come back to haunt him.”
Stay tuned for more insight from Kora, the amazing 105-year-old woman who claims she should have learned to keep her mouth shut a long time ago. But why stop a good thing now?