A Magical Life Lesson I Learnt From Grandma

Patience can be an embarrassing virtue.

In July 1992, my dad came into my bedroom early one Sunday morning, to tell me my Grandmother had passed away. I was 11 years old. I didn’t cry, but my heart ached. Writing this some 28 years later, it still does.

But I was lucky. When I was three years old, my Grandmother was told she had an incurable aggressive form of pancreatic cancer and that she had six months to live. My Grandmother was a fighter; she refused to accept her prognosis; she wasn’t ready to die.

If you’re still here you have a job to do

I don’t know what she told herself every day to keep herself here for another nine years, but my goodness I’m eternally grateful she did. Had she not, I doubt my 3-year-old self would have remembered her the way I do.

Patience is an embarrassing virtue

Thirty years ago on the 27th of June 1990, the new 5p came into circulation in the UK. To most people, a new coin coming into circulation wouldn’t have been that exciting, the novelty soon wears off when you’ve seen a few.

But not Grandma. She saw this as an opportunity to teach her 8-year-old granddaughter a lesson in finance, patience and gratitude. Every time we went to the shop, we would check her change, and if there were any in there, we would save them in a little button box that sat on her window ledge.

The prize we were saving for a MacDonald’s Happy Meal! What else could an 8-year-old possibly want?

We set our goal at £5.00, and we accepted our challenge, not knowing how long it would take us to collect those 100 shiny buttons of patience!

It took forever.

When you’re eight years old, and you want a Happy Meal, it feels like a very long time. On that magical day around Winter 1990. I had absolutely no idea what was about to unfold. We entered MacDonalds and ordered our food, my mouth watering at the very thought and then it happened. My Grandmother poured 100 silver 5ps all over the counter.

The cashier was a gasp. She looked at my Grandmother like she was some crazy lady and then she looked at me.

I knew in that instant that perhaps this wasn’t the normal thing to do.

“I’ve been saving them up,” I said.

Had I not uttered those words, I think we’d probably have been asked to leave or pay by some other means. Some of the 5ps slid off the end of the counter and were now under the drink dispenser, and the cashier was scuttling around on the floor on her hands and knees.

I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing my Grandmother would have been having a little chuckle to herself inside. She was kind and caring but also had a naughty side.

The cashier began painstakingly counting them.

“There’s 20 in a pound” — I piped up.

I was hoping I might be able to speed up and help the cashier, who was now flustered and unamused.

This memory will always be my ultimate happy meal in the truest sense of the word. I learnt about patience, the importance of saving for a rainy day; I learnt to see the magic in the tiniest (shiny) things. I learnt my Grandma had a wicked sense of humour.

Today as I ponder this memory, I also see the beauty of a strong, determined dying woman who never lost faith that she would see the day when I would get my Happy Meal because she was so focused on sticking around and teaching me what she could.

She taught me many lessons like this, and I’ll be forever grateful.

Thank you, Grandma, for never giving up.