What Would She Say?

If you saw me in the parking lot at lunch you would think "Cute dress. Bad hair." I don't outwardly appear to be a total disaster. I am showing up for work and brushing my teeth. The kids get vitamins every morning and all of the towels are clean. I even fed and watered the roses yesterday. Life is not bad. I am just DONE.

Capital D. Capital O. Capital N. Capital E. DONE

Our offspring are being truly ungrateful and rude to each other. My tolerance for corporate nonsense is dangerously low. I struggle to write concisely and professionally in business correspondence because I really just want to rant and tell people they are complete jack asses!!!!! I truly, truly, truly hate packing lunches and unloading the dishwasher.

DONE

And then I open my jewelry box to make myself feel better with something pretty and see the photo of her.



Nanny and The Princess - September 2004

 What would she say to me right now?

I would tell her every word I just wrote and she would definitely scold me for saying jackass. But what would she really say?

She survived her husband, two of her three children and one of her grandchildren. She never even had a dishwasher. Ever. She washed every dish by hand immediately after every meal. Every time. Even after fried chicken and homemade biscuits. She hand wrote me a letter every week for ten years after I moved to California. After her arthritis made writing too painful she typed to me on a typewriter. And when she didn't have anything to say she would type;

"I don't have anything to say. I just want you to know that you're my sunshine. Love, Nanny"

And I never heard her complain in my whole life. Ever.

Oh my goodness, I can not believe how much I still miss her.

E and I have been talking endlessly about how entitled and ungracious our children seem this summer and I can't help thinking that maybe it's because we're so entitled and ungracious. Are they complaining about being tired from camp because we're complaining about being tired from work? Do they talk to each other like that because we talk to them like that?

I know the answer but I want it to be different.

I want to be more like her. I want to be tough and graceful on the same day. I want to smile at every single person I encounter and mean it. I want to be truly thankful for the dirty dishes and the lunch boxes and lead the ungracious children in the other direction. Purely by example.

She was really the most wonderful person in the world. I know what she would say.




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