A grandmother of mine always carried an umbrella, no matter what the weather, and when I was a little girl I thought she was just a strange old lady. When I got a little older (and probably a little brasher) dared to ask her: "Grandma, why do you always carry an umbrella? It makes people laugh at you," to which she replied: "It makes people laugh? Good!" like to make people laugh. But do you really want to know why I always carry an umbrella?" Of course I nodded in the affirmative, curious to know what made Grandma such an eccentric, but as I think back on her answer I realize that her "eccentricity" was really a pretty good philosophy. "I carry an umbrella," she said, "so that I'll always be prepared for rain, but if it doesn't rain, then each day the sun shines is a special delight and I am grateful for it isn't is always nicer to see the sunshine when you were expecting rain? And it doesn't bother me if I carry the umbrella for nothing" she continued. "Actually, it makes a good cane if I'm unsure of my footing" (her umbrella wasn't one of those little fold-up jobs, it was a man's big black umbrella with a cane-type handle) "and if anybody thinks they're gonna get fresh with me, my bumbleshoot here makes a pretty good weapon" (Grandma lived on the lower east side of New York City and I guess even in those days there were unsavory characters around)
So that was the story of Grandma's umbrella, but what impressed me most was her appreciation of every sunny day that most people would probably have taken for granted. And it makes me think of the different kinds of people there are in the world. For instance, there are those who, if they carried an umbrella and it didn't rain, instead of being grateful for the sunshine, they'd grumble that they had to carry an umbrella for nothing, which when you think of it isn't such a bad price to pay for a beautiful day. Perhaps they'd even bemoan the fact that nature played a trick on them and nothing ever goes their way. Then there are those who might see dark clouds in the sky in the morning, know they ought to take an umbrella with them just in case, but will complain bitterly that it had the nerve to rain when they were without any protection. Personally, I like the kind of person who will see a rainy day and say, "So what, so I'll get a little wet and the world won't come to an end," and from there he or she will go on to Plan B for the rest of the day's activities.
But to get back to Grandma, her motto seemed to be be prepared for the worst but appreciate the good; or another way she put it was expect nothing, appreciate everything, which I'm sure is not an easy philosophy to live by but Grandma sure seemed to be a happy person. Another thing she used to say is: "Don't ever think the Good Lord has left us orphans. He's up there taking care of us all the time." This morning when I caught my heel on a step and could have taken a nasty fall but didn't because I grabbed the railing just in time, or last night when my husband and I were driving back from visiting his parents in the city and cars were all zigzagging all around us without any of them bumping us, I could almost hear Grandma saying "See, you are being watched over." Poor God, He never seems to get credit for the good He does, only the blame for when something goes wrong.
皺 *Terri the Typesetter
T-Views Week of August 12, 1984
No comments:
Post a Comment