As I have spent time this week with my Grandmother, I think the main take away is that perseverance is a value. I have learned this from most of my family. My Grandmother on my mother’s side lost two husbands and still continued on. Despite all the odds she kept doing what she could to keep her little family going. She was the direct descendants of Danish immigrants who came over seas with nothing to build a brand new life in the cold and rugged terrain of southern Utah. When people say things like, “she comes from good stock,” I know exactly what they mean.
Yesterday my Grandmother related the story of her younger sister and her getting sick with whooping cough. After a few days of sickness, the asked my Grandmother if they would like to see her sister one last time. She realizes now that her sister was probably gone and they wanted her to see her before they carted her off to be prepared for burial. She has 6 other siblings that died at a young age. She was not alive when most of them had died, but we were thinking about her mother. I knew my Great Grandmother. She was a reserved, quiet and stoic woman. I think I know why. After burying so many people, I thing you start to view life though a different lens.
We go on. We persevere. When you make a mistake, you just pick up and move on. No need to complain, whine, spend time in regret. Just pick up and do what you can again. I am not sure anyone in my family takes complaining very seriously. Hard to take life’s little hardships that seriously when you have Grandparents that suffered the worst imaginable. So we remember. We understand how bad it could be, so we carry on. Persevere. It is our core value.
