100 Years

This year my mom's mother would have been 100 years old.

It's amazing to think of the enormous changes that occurred within her lifetime.  Even in my dad's sixty years his family went from having no refrigerator and no indoor plumbing on the farm to all the convenient luxuries we have today.

My Grandma was born a couple of days before the Titanic took its fateful plunge...according to some quick research only a few, more "elite" individuals in Canada had a Model T automobile, milk was delivered daily and Crisco (shortening) had just been invented in 1911.  Apparently, the next year, in 1912, "the Archbishop of Paris decreed that 'Christians must not tango.'" http://originalwavelength.blogspot.ca/2012/01/v-behaviorurldefaultvmlo.html

So different than the world we know.

After a brief sojourn with our kids to the "city" to renew passports I decided to do something that I hadn't done in almost 8 years.  I (we) visited my grandmother's grave.  Buried beside her husband who had died when my mom was a mere 10 years old, her grave had obviously seen few visitors.  And none so motivated as to pull weeds.  (Which makes me truly think she has had no company as her children are all fervent hard working sorts of whom none would leave any alien plant alive.)

As I yanked crabgrass and its virile white roots from the bricked in "patch" thoughts of life with grandma almost choked me up.  Suddenly fond memories (as opposed to previously well-guarded ones of a harsh and bitter woman) played through my mind.  I spoke them aloud.

"Grandma used to love to have her hair brushed.  When I lived with her on the orchard during the summers we would sit up near bedtime and I would brush and brush and brush her kinky slightly-dyed tan locks that stretched to almost shoulder length when pulled through with a comb.  She would often sigh.  That was about the only time she would ever sit still...in that big well-loved but hardly-used lazy boy by the dining room table.  Sometimes she would let the TV prattle on in the background."

"Mmmmm...Grandma used to make the best creamed peas....even your Grandma, my mom, bless her extraordinary culinary skills, can never get them quite the way her mom did.   Mmmmm...yummy."

Our kids wandered the other graves, sometimes remarking on comments I uttered and sometimes simply letting me dwell in my reverie.

An emotional surprise in a locale I hadn't even thought of visiting when we left our home earlier in the day.

What would Grandma think of even the newest changes in our world?