Monday, 19 August 2024
Who spends time each morning scrolling through videos while they’re having their morning coffee? It’s totally acceptable to do these two things at once. You have to drink your coffee anyway so it makes sense. That’s how I justify it. I always end up watching videos that either make me cry, like a kid witnessing his dad propose to his mom, or a grandma, daughter and granddaughter having a girls day out. How sweet is that!?
The other videos I end up watching are the good ole inspirational ones. It’s not like I don’t know what they’re probably going to say either, but I watch them anyway: you have to go through “it” to grow, do what makes you happy, let go of fear and go for it. I love those freaking videos. They get me pepped up for the day. They’re a great compliment to my morning black coffee.
With World Seniors Day coming up on August 21st having the theme this year being “Seniors give wise and useful advice” it made me wonder - what is the best advice I’ve received from the seniors I’ve known in my life? There were A LOT of them. I had all four of my grandparents in my life, as well as a great grandmother.. I also worked as a PSW for about 14 years so I have had the fortunate opportunity to have met and interviewed hundreds of seniors. I thought quickly about how to answer the question of what’s the best advice I’ve ever received from a senior and I think I have to answer this question in two parts: One-the best advice given by a senior I worked with and two: the best advice from a grandparent.
Best advice from seniors I worked with
I’ll quickly say from all my interviews I conducted with my willing residents and home care clients who so graciously and openly shared with me some great pieces of advice, the best advice I received was really from observing how they reacted to those who were genuinely helpful and kind. The advice: Be Kind. You don’t know what someone else has gone through.
Best advice from a grandparent
On my dad’s side, I didn’t get to know his father very well as he passed away when I was very young, but I do remember his mother. My sweet grandma Layton. She was just adorable and a sensitive God fearing woman. I always thought she had the best smile. She was always very welcoming and seemed to take whatever was happening to her in stride. I guess after having eight children you learn to kind of roll with it. Although I loved visiting her and being around her I don’t recall receiving any life changing advice from her.
On my mother’s side we did spend a significant amount of time with her parents growing up. My mother’s father was a quiet man. He had his moments of humour where he would look over at my sister and I with a quick little quirky smile, then he’d either go right back to watching TV or he’d be off to the store to pick up something for dinner, or off to the bowling alley. My mom’s parents were both avid bowlers and won many awards, which were displayed prominently in their living room. We learned to stay out of grandpa’s way and especially out of his chair.
Then there was my mom’s mother. Lucille was her name. She was a smoker and she was really fun to be around. She loved watching tennis and rarely missed a match. She would iron in the living room while she watched American Bandstand. (Yes, that show was still on when I was a kid. Millennials and younger folks, Google it). She would wear her “house dresses” which was basically a simple cotton dress that stopped just below her knees and it was always coupled with a complimentary apron. She may or may not have had her hair in rollers-it just depended on what was happening later that day. If nothing, she would comb her permed curls nicely in her short just below the ear style hairdo.
Lucille was a fun loving lady, which makes me believe grandpa was a fun loving guy since they were married for over 40 years. He was a little more reserved and probably suffered from PTSD from having fought in WWII. They were a great match. There’s even a bit of a naughty controversial photo of them on their 40th wedding anniversary, that we noticed after the photos were developed. It was such a sweet photo: they were outside of their home in Niagara Falls, her lovely rose garden providing a perfect backdrop. Whoever took the photograph asked them to kiss, to which they joyfully obliged. When the pictures came back from the developer, it looked like grandma had placed her hand on or near grandpa’s *cough* area shall I call it. She swore up and down that she was in the process of raising her hand up to lovingly put it on grandpa’s face as they kissed. Hmm, sure grandma. ;) It’s been the subject of hilarious debate for years.
There’s also grandma’s bean soup recipe, her famous and very tasty pasta sauce and her world famous (or at least they should have been) lemon tarts. I recall many visits to my grandparents house when immediately after hugs and kisses of hello were given,we’d promptly ask grandma if she would make us her bean soup! She always said yes and would go straight into the kitchen to begin cooking. She said her recipes were a secret so she’d never let anyone in the kitchen while she was cooking. That soup was soooo good! It was a nice creamy soup with full green and yellow beans in it. I was always amazed how she was able to whip it up so quickly! Well, we found out many years later after she passed just how her kitchen turned out such quick, tasty meals. It turns out her homemade bean soup was just cream of mushroom soup that she added the beans to. Oh, and her pasta sauce: Ragu. Those incredible lemon tarts-the ones soooo good that nothing has ever come close to comparison in my opinion: store bought mini pie shells with lemon pie filling.
I feel like I resonated the most with her, so the best advice I ever received from a senior was from my Grandma Lucille Lahey: Do It With Love. Even though she said her recipes were a secret, clearly in an effort to not be found out, she was in the kitchen cooking with the best not so secret ingredient: LOVE.
Everyone my grandmother came into contact with received the same from her. If she was serving you or helping you with something, she was doing it all with love. I have tried and failed to make her bean soup. I just have to open a can of cream of mushroom and add some cooked green and yellow beans. It doesn’t taste the same, to me. When I make it with love, and serve it to my husband or a friend, they go crazy for it! They say it’s so tasty and they thank me for making them this soup. It used to baffle me, but not anymore. I get it.
If we do everything in life with love:
We will never fail.
We will be happy.
We will make others happy and feel love.
They will then continue to make others happy and feel loved.
If my grandma were still with us, I would make a quick reel of her giving her best advice, and I would bet money this would be it. She’d say “That’s easy. It’s simple, Do It With Love”. She’d be a social media sensation, spreading her advice and inspiring everyone, especially those sitting in their living rooms, drinking their morning coffee.
Grandma was definitely onto something.
