Grandma Sadie's Legacy

I remember my Grandma Sadie well. Mr. Shakespeare was likely using his future vision and thinking of my grandma when he penned the phrase, “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” Grandma had a tenacity that easily outpaced the frail, bent-over frame that she was stuck with in her later years. We used to joke that she moved faster than lightning in the day-after-Thanksgiving frenzy of shopping at the mall. It was hard to find her, of course, because of her stature; but when we did find her, we would all be put to shame by the amount of shopping she had done, as well as the weight of the shopping bag she was carrying/dragging around.  My grandma was a force of nature, the type of person that it seems natural to tell tall tales about. One time, she fell and broke her hip on the way to the mail box in her rural home. She had been back and forth a couple of times that day, as the weather wasn’t the best and the mail delivery was later than usual. If I remember correctly, her comment was, “If the mailman had been on time, none of this would have happened.” There was no “slowing down” in her. Even after that fall, she whizzed around her small home with a walker as if she were an Olympic competitor. And at the center of it all was her heart of service. “Can you stay for cake?” was her greeting as you walked in her door to visit. “I’m so sorry I didn’t have much to feed you,” she would say as you finished the feast she had provided, refusing a third serving of that incredible chocolate cake. I still miss that chocolate cake.

Grandma Sadie, the way I remember her - 1981-ish

I am pretty sure that the things I remember about Grandma are almost all centered around service. She didn’t serve out of obligation, though. She served out of love. She went and stayed with her cancer-stricken daughter during her final days, to help out with the housework. She served at her church. She came to our house every Thanksgiving Eve, as we got ready to host the crowd, and she helped with all the mundane tasks that needed to get done. She helped out with the family of her son who lived across the way from her. She called my mom just to chat almost every evening. She wrote beautiful, long letters to her family members, in spite of the fact that she could barely see. She loved, and she made her love known.

Sadie Loretta (Loucks) Anderson was born on October 8, 1897 and died on December 16, 1986. She’s been gone 33 years now – a long time, to be sure. What a treasure one more conversation with her would be: one more chance to glean her wisdom and feel her love, one more chance to see her eyes sparkle as she listened intently to all I have to say. I would ask her so many things. I’d love to be the kind of grandma she was, but I'm pretty sure she would tell me to just be the kind of grandma that reflects who I am.

Sadie Loretta Loucks, as a young girl

Sadie  loved her horse/pony Bud

I was 27 years old and married (but with no kids yet), when my grandma died. Grandma used to say that she was a young person trapped in an old person's body. I appreciated that sentiment and I even thought that it sounded a bit romantic. I would go so far as to say that I thought I understood it. Sixty-year-old me is confident that twenty-seven-year-old me only had a vague idea of what that turn of phrase actually meant. You might even say I only "saw it in a mirror dimly."

I had a humorous incident with my preschoolers recently that began to make my grandma's statement quite a bit more personal. A student in the class was “reading” Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See? (by Bill Martin, Jr. and Eric Carle) to the class. It is a wonderful little board book with rhymes and pictures. It starts out with“Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see? I see a red bird, looking at me,” and continues with each animal seeing another. Toward the end, children enter the story and reply, “I see a teacher looking at me.” The picture of that teacher is below.

What I think I look like...

I looked at the picture of that teacher and saw me. I have round glasses. I have short, brown hair. Except, I don't have brown hair anymore. I clearly do not have a good mental image of what I actually look like! The me-inside is much younger than the me everyone else sees.  So here's how the conversation went in our classroom.

Me: “Hey, I look like that teacher! I have round glasses. (I positioned myself by the book for comparison.) I have ...(I falter, realizing I was going to say I have brown hair, and then continue, weakly)...hair on my head.....”

Student: “Her hair is brown.”

He didn't have to say it. I already knew it. There was that unspoken implication that my hair was NOT brown so I really did NOT look like the teacher in this book. Ouch.

The real me!

Aging is a natural process, and it is filled with many blessings. It is also filled with continual change, and heartbreak is inevitable along the way. In truth, I know that I have only experienced a light dusting of the impact of aging.  My grandma had lived a long life, and she had experienced her share (and possibly more than her share) of heartaches along the way; and yet, the young person living inside her aging frame still embraced the optimism of her youth. Grandma Sadie knew how to momentarily block out all the physical and emotional pain and tap into an internal fountain of youth where arthritis, glaucoma, hearing loss, and grief did not exist. She trusted God to restore her body and mend her heart, and until He did, she held tight to His promises and LIVED!

Grandma as a young mom, with my mom, about 1921

Grandma with Mom again, as Mom was getting ready to take her first steps

Sadie and her chickens

Oh my, what a way to live life! Sadie's children Audrey, Marj, Gene, and Shirley all understood/understand their mother's legacy, whether they lived to an old age or not. She did her best to set them on that path and then let them travel it in their own way. To my eyes, she was a shining example of abundant generosity, deep gratitude, overflowing joy, and genuine kindness.

In this season of Thanksgiving (and always), I am so thankful for Grandma's life and her legacy. Dear God, help me always remember to live with Your eternity in mind, to let go of each day's worries, and to give generously every of myself chance I get. And thank you for my Grandma Sadie. Amen.