A torch of kindness passed down through the generations
She was a product of the Great Depression, my grandmother was. For my generation and later, not having experienced the tremendous societal challenges, especially the financial woes, first-hand, we can’t really appreciate the particular hardships of those years. Unless fortunate enough to still have relatives who remember, we can only hear the stories as they are passed down, and empathize best we can.
That said, current generations have certainly known our own tragedies of mass proportions (e.g., 9/11), and most adults can understand hardship and struggle from personal experience.
Following the Depression, it was during WW II when my grandmother was raising her three children, mostly by herself, while her husband was serving in the navy. Education was a value she held highly for them, but unfortunately, she herself had to leave school with only a fourth-grade education in order to help care for her six (six!) brothers.
And yet, she was the wisest person I’ve ever known.
After the war, and now with four school-age children, she taught her brood to make a game out of anything tedious—chores or homework for example—that they didn’t like doing. And she followed her own advice: after waxing the floors, she’d invite the kids to run around, slipping and sliding in their socks. Without knowing it, their sock-skating was giving her floors a final polish, all while they giggled and had a ball.
She figured out how to wrap presents without tape (which was too costly during the war), re-finish recycled furniture, paint like a seasoned artist, and educated herself to improve her writing skills in order to be the secretary for the PTA. Years later, when painting the basement walls, she let her grandson go ahead of her, painting murals and wild, childlike swirls. When a neighbor asked if he wasn’t wasting the paint by doing that, she replied, “No, he’s giving those areas a second coat!”
This woman was my grandmother, and I that grandchild. And along with those stories and memories swirling in my head, I perhaps best remember the story of her baking pies from scratch during those earlier times of financial strife, but only keeping half of each pie for her family. The other half went to a family down the street that was even poorer.
I was told that the mother of that household wasn’t even nice to my grandmother, never offering a kind word or expression of gratitude. But that didn’t matter. My grandmother was consistent in her act of kindness. She wasn’t doing it because of who the neighbor was. She was doing it because of who she was.
Although her kids grumbled about the half-pies, she nevertheless made a lasting impression on them. She didn’t just give lip service. She followed her beliefs with action. After all, if you believe in something you do it. And personal values are only of value when we put them to the test. So, as a result, I’ve never known my mother, an education professional, not to be volunteering.
In my native New England, she voluntarily (and bravely) faced snowstorms and inner-city crime to help those students who were counting on her. And I witnessed it. Which is why I myself have rarely had a year in my adulthood when I wasn’t volunteering for one healthcare organization or another.
I had a conversation with a physician friend of mine recently about volunteerism. He said, “When we volunteer, we approach it thinking that we’ll be helping others. In fact, we help ourselves so much more. We interact with people we otherwise wouldn’t. We learn from them and develop our empathy. We’re the ones who benefit.”
Mother Teresa said, “If you can’t help 1,000 people, just help one.” Former President Jimmy Carter said, “Volunteerism will save this country.” And Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”
Spring’s here. The weather will be warming up. Let’s take to heart their wisdom, and my grandmother’s, and put our wishes for humanity into action. And let’s imprint that spirit onto future generations. We may save others. We’ll certainly save ourselves.