I wanted to share another chapter from Dad Was Right: 10 Life Lessons a Father Taught His Son with you today. My good friend Jayne read an advanced copy and said this was her probably her favorite chapter. Specifically she, “Loved hearing the story about (your grandmother) and your grandfather, their life and love together. And your regular contact with her….Sometimes we just let life take over and don’t realize how important those contacts are.”
Call Your Grandmother
Back before we each had a phone in our pockets with unlimited minutes, telephone calls cost money—especially the long-distance ones.
For us, every member of our extended family was a long-distance call. As a kid, we only made such calls at specified times, like nights and weekends. In my teenage years long-distance rates became less prohibitive, but calls outside our area code were more expensive.
Calls to Grandma were still allowed. In fact, they were encouraged.
By the time I reached the age of ten, I only had one grandparent still alive, Grandma Floyd. Grandpa Floyd had died back when I was in the first grade. I lost both of my mom’s parents when I was in the fourth grade. Grandma Floyd was the last grandparent standing.
Born in 1901, she’d seen the quintessential American century up close and personal. The Great War, Prohibition, the Roaring ’20s, the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, plus the invention of the automobile, the airplane, the radio, and the television.
Grandma Floyd married only once, raised six children, and cared for a husband and a son wounded in two different wars. She’d seen it all, lived through the toughest of situations, and never lost her faith or optimism. I know we all believe our grandmothers are remarkable women, but mine really was!
Grandma Floyd was an amazing woman, and it was important to call her. My dad would remind me to do so, and slightly chastise me if I didn’t. Normally he didn’t have to.
With few exceptions, I enjoyed calling my grandma. She always supported me and showed real interest in the things I did. She also served as an incredible source of information on the happenings throughout the family. She knew plenty about my aunts, uncles, and cousins, and she freely shared.
Wednesdays became my normal evening to call her. My dad settled into teaching night school on Wednesday, so being home alone before the internet and decent video games, I had plenty of time to call and check in with Grandma Floyd.
Those calls strengthened a bond between she and I that had always been there. We became closer when my parents divorced, and remained that way until her death in 1994. I look back and know how blessed I was to have her in my life and to have that time with her.
I also learned how much those calls meant to her. Cleaning out my grandparents’ house after her death, my dad and I came across years of monthly calendar books dating back to the mid-1970s. Not only did she keep her doctors’ appointments and scheduled trips written in them, she also noted down every time a family member called or visited her.
As you might expect, plenty of Wednesdays noted that “Brian Called.”
Seeing how detailed her calendars were, I looked back to October 1978, when my grandfather died. On the day of his funeral, she listed everyone who came. The list was quite long, and spilled into other days on the calendar. My name wasn’t there, as my parents deemed me too young to attend a funeral. The notation on the day of my grandfather’s death gave me chills. “Am Heartbroken.”
It’s natural to be heartbroken when you lose someone you deeply and truly love. My grandparents had been married for so many years, and although she outlived her husband by sixteen years, Grandma Floyd never stopped loving him. Nor did she remove her wedding ring.
After Jesus, Grandpa Floyd was the love her life. She was proud to be Mrs. Herbert Floyd. She lived in the house they had bought following my grandfather’s recovery from his wounds in World War II until the day she had a massive stroke and was hospitalized. She loved my grandfather like I’ve never seen any woman love a man.
Only after her death did I realize how lonely my grandmother’s life was without him. She kept herself busy, and family often came by to see her, but she lived alone for nearly twenty years.
That’s part of the reason my dad reminded me to call her. Not only did he want me to stay connected with her, but he did his part to make sure that even though she might be living alone, she was thought of often and deeply loved.
The longer we live, the more people we will bury. As that happens, the less people we will have around us, especially as we grow older. Time alone becomes more prevalent, and being alone can lead to loneliness.
That’s why it’s important to check in with the people we love and care for, either with a phone call or an in-person visit. Sure, we can comment on their Facebook status update or send a text, but that’s the easy way out. Picking up the phone to make a call or getting in the car to take someone to lunch takes effort and demonstrates the love we profess for them.
Those simple acts of love, like those Wednesday phone calls I made to Grandma Floyd, really do make an impact on people’s lives and their hearts, as her writings in her little calendar books proved to me.
With that said, call your grandmother!
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I hope you liked this chapter of Dad Was Right.
If so, here’s another chapter you might enjoy titled “Be Smart When You Have to Fight.”
And if you’d like to read the entire book, you can get an advanced PDF of Dad Was Right for free at this link.
Please let me know what you think of the book in the comments of my blog or drop me an email!