Skip to main content

if I could

My Grandmother never learned how to drive. After my Grandfather passed away, she had to rely on her children and grandchildren to get places. As a working teenager, it was a little frustrating that when I did make time to see her, all she wanted me to do was drive her places, often long distances, to see people and do things. As an adult looking back, I now understand how little freedom she had and how important those visits were to her. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate my visit, me skipping activities with friends or using a vacation day to come see her; it was simply that my (or others) visit was a small window of opportunity to do something.

I was reminded of that today. A weekly volunteer who comes in to help at work was talking about another lady who would love to come work and do things, but has no way to come. It made me sad to hear that, and made me wish we had the freedom to leave work and go pick her up and take her home.

I like to think that if I could go back in time with the knowledge I have now, that I would schedule regular visits, like every other week, to see my Grandmother and take her places. And yet I think about how frantic my lifes is now, and how seldom it seems I have free time. Would it really be any different today?

Comments

Lydia said…
Totally off the subject of your post (I do that a lot)...what is the Dreamweaver book?

Tell Bobby thanks for watching the girls Sunday morning while Rich came back home to pick me and the boys up. We now have a new battery in the van:)
Monica said…
Dreamweaver is an Adobe software that creates web pages. I had an introductory class before I graduated from Wake Tech, but have never done anything else with it. When I had to upgrade all my Adobe Software in January, I was able to get a discount off the instruction books, so I'm hoping to both freshen up and learn the Dreamweaver software better. There's 11 chapters in the book, but each one comes with a lesson and exercises to do.

Popular posts from this blog

things we do for love

Saturday we had a baby shower for Bobby's niece. As I was making the mints, Bobby asked what else was on the menu. After I recited off the litany of items, he responded with "No peanut butter?! This shower is for Hannah! What's she going to eat?" (Hannah has had stomach problems over the years and has been unable to tolerate many foods, but peanut butter has been her staple.) Despite my assurances that she would enjoy the foods we were having, he was adamant that I needed to make peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the shower. Even though I protested that NOBODY took that to a shower, he persisted, and informed me I could make them dainty with my little cutter. And so I did. To my surprise all but 3 were eaten. Who'd a thunk it?

get your house in order

My grandmothers were very clean people. My mother thoroughly enjoys cleaning, though she doesn't quite hit the same level my grandmothers were on. I don't enjoy cleaning, but I do like things to be clean. I've almost given up on neatness. One thing that they all instilled in me is the crazy concept that your house must be in order before you go somewhere big - like a vacation or something. After all, you could die in a car crash or have to go to the hospital, and then people would go into your house and find it in a terrible mess. Who wants to be remembered by that? So up until this past year, I would sometimes be up almost all night not only trying to get things packed up, but also trying to totally clean house as well. Or should I say, make the house presentable? The Chinese had a horrible superstition that my mother and grandparents would have enjoyed. Spring Festival (the Chinese New Year based on the lunar calendar) required EVERYTHING to be cleaned top to

Wait...it's almost March?!?

 10 more months 'til Christmas. This last month has been an absolute blur. Cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, cleaning at our house, lots of thinking and brainstorming and rearranging, appointments upon appointments, sinus infection/allergies, Bobby's surgery, meeting with surgeon and finally agreeing to future outpatient surgery for me, ongoing updates from my parents, garden tilled and snow peas, potatoes and beets planted (and yes I left several rows empty between the potatoes and beets for something else to go later as a buffer), chickens are laying, we may have a broody hen..in FEBRUARY!!!, we have two roosters that need to disappear, lots of family have been in from out of town to assist with the sorting and cleaning at Mrs. Bryan's house, and somewhere in the midst of it all I've found time to pay bills and catch up on a few emails. While I no longer feel like our house is a disaster zone, it is still overwhelming. Years ago a friend posted a quote by Martin Lut