Strong and Resilient

I woke up this morning, let the dogs out and promptly crawled back into bed. I’d convinced myself I “didn’t feel well”, I was “tired from the long road trip we took yesterday”, I was “getting a migraine”.  All of these excuses, reasons why I didn’t want to face the world today. It’s the 4 year anniversary of my Grandma’s passing. I knew it, I know it everyday. I keep track of all the days since I’ve seen her last. Not the day in the hospital room as I watched her heartbeat on the machines slow, surrounded peacefully by her family. Not that day, that day it too hard to replay. Instead I think of the day I spent sitting at her house, talking with her for hours.

Grandma Jeanne cooked without measuring, she added things until it “tasted right”. During some of our talks I would try to write down recipes of her signature dishes. Her lasagna, her meatballs, her eggplant parm. She was Italian if you can’t tell.  I always left wondering if mine would taste as good as hers. She could tell me how many pounds of meat, how many cans of this or that, but herbs, salt, pepper. When she’d get to those, her face would get a certain expression, she’d tried to recall how she measured those vital ingredients that made it taste the same every time. She’d always say, ” I don’t know Dolly, I just know how it’s suppose to taste, I never measure.”  You should know that she called all of us grand kids and great grand kids Dolly, this was not a term of endearment for me alone.

Our talks were superficial on the surface, I never wanted to disappoint her, so I never talked to her about my feelings toward certain things. I knew she was raised in a time where woman were expected to keep their opinions to themselves. There isn’t one time I can remember her crying. I’m sure she did, probably silently when no one was around. I held myself to a higher standard because I wanted to be like her, strong and resilient.  I also knew that she accepted everyone for who they are, myself included.  I see now that they were far from superficial, I may not have told her my deepest darkest secrets but she knew who I was and she loved me.

So today I choose to get out of bed, to be strong and resilient, to face the day. I can’t guarantee I will keep my opinions to myself, I generally don’t. That’s not who I am.