My Grandma Died at 104 Years Old — Here Are the Eloquent Life Lessons She Taught Me
It’s time to share her wisdom with the world.
Imagine growing up before the great depression and living through the invention of the telephone, commercial air flight, many world wars, and the joy of owning a car for the first time when all you ever knew before the car was a horse and cart.
That was what it was like to be my grandma. At 104 years of age, she decided she had enough and stopped eating. She died shortly after.
My grandma was one of those once in a lifetime people that broke all the rules and refused to live life like anybody else. At her core she was humble, incredibly generous, a beautiful soul and would subtly impart timeless advice.
Her husband was a potato farmer who died before I was born, so we never got to talk veggie shop or potato entrepreneurship. Hopefully, he would be proud of the grandson he never met because I’m proud of the legacy he left.
Here are the eloquent life lessons my grandma left behind:
Always wake up with a stupidly big smile
I remember waking up at my grandma’s place and walking into the living room where there was fresh porridge with honey waiting for me.
No matter what happened the day before, grandma always woke up with a huge grin on her face. It was weird as a kid.
No one else in my life was as happy as her and I think that was her secret grandma sauce when it came to living. Nothing phased her and she always found the good in every situation.
Hope was the green juice that raced through her veins
Even when things looked grim, she never gave up hope. Everything had a reason and there was purpose behind the good times and the rough times.
Growing up during war times taught her to find a sense of hope that many of us can probably never relate to.
There are hard times, and then there’s living through the great depression
After she was married, she was so poor that she cut her wedding dress up and turned it into clothes for her children. That’s what real hard times looked like for my grandma during the great depression.
She learned to do a lot with not very much. Her desire to own material objects was lost during the great depression and it never returned.
Some would say that’s the biggest gift that came out of that era. Me? Well, I’m too young and spoilt compared to my grandma’s era to truly understand that lesson. Maybe one day I will.
Give something to a stranger you selfish little boy!
Throughout her entire life, outside of housework, my grandma had an unusual day job that didn’t pay her a dollar: knitting clothes for children in third-world countries.
Some would say her working life was similar to that of Mother Teressa, except no one really knew what she was up to. She liked to give without seeking notoriety or acknowledgment — the good old fashion way.
This career of selflessness was accidentally gifted to me through her example. She was so happy yet she never had a job with a salary, or owned a business or ever felt what it was like to receive a paycheque. The Youtube and Instagram culture of making money to fulfill goals could learn a lot from grandma. If only they saw how she lived, perhaps money would become secondary rather than being the aim.
The pile of Christmas cards you get says a lot
Every year, grandma would get a huge pile of Christmas cards from all over the world. She would graciously hang them on several bits of string that were tied to nails positioned strategically all around her living room.
By the end of Christmas, her living room would be surrounded by Christmas cards. The phone would ring every day with strangers asking to speak with grandma so they could wish her Merry Christmas.
If my grandma had ever heard the cliche line “your network equals your net-worth,” I think she would have a thing or two to say. She never opened an internet browser, though, or downloaded an app. The simple life was the way she preferred things.
It’s not all about business, you know
My grandma couldn’t give two hoots (her line) about business. She didn’t care what the stock markets were doing or about starting a business.
While she didn’t care for business, she was running a social enterprise with her clothes-making, although she would never dare attach such a fancy label that attempted to make her work look significant.
In a world obsessed with making money and having to own a business, my grandma lived in ignorant bliss.
Who gives a damn what the Jones’s are doing
Comparing her life to those she lived next to was never something my grandma bothered with.
When her neighbors were doing better than her, she just smiled. When they got a car that was far better than hers, she wished them well. When her neighbors moved on to richer neighborhoods, she was happy for them and gave them her phone number.
The size of her backyard, whilst small, was big enough for a small veggie patch and that’s all she really needed because that brought back memories of her husband.
You can be happy without travel
After 104 years of being on Earth, my grandma never left her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. And she never went on a plane.
It’s not that she couldn’t travel; she just didn’t see the need to. Escaping to other countries wasn’t as fun as being surrounded by people she loved and settling for a simpler life.
Travel is a great gift, but you don’t have to travel to be happy.
Housework is a joy
Personally, I hate housework. Not grandma, though — she loved it.
Each day she would sweep the floors, clean the dishes and never dare complain about the luxury life she was living by having housework to do.
Many of the families she knitted clothes for didn’t have to do housework like her. Having food, dishes and a broom to sweep the floor was not a privilege they knew. Somehow my grandma never forgot just how spoilt we can be and that has stayed with me.
The fact you have food and a roof over your head is a huge win.
Debt-free leads to stress-free
When it comes to money, my grandma never had huge amounts but she also never had debt.
Everything was always paid for when she could afford it. By not having debt, she was never forced to take a job after her husband died and only the leftovers from his potato farm remained.
She made that small amount of money last a lifetime by not wasting it on items she didn’t need. Part of the reason she was so chill, is that debt didn’t have her by the legs ready to rob her of her famous smile.
Eat your freaking almonds
Grandma had a diet like one of those people that lives in the Blue Zone. Every day she would eat her almonds, enjoy some dates, drink plenty of water and consume lots of veggies.
Sweets were not her thing because the simple gift of having food was sweeter than any sticky date pudding one could try and tempt her with.
By taking care of her body, she had stupid amounts of energy that allowed her to enjoy life and be there for her family.
Family first
There was only one life goal that mattered to my grandma: family.
She wasn’t building an empire, stacking one hundred dollar bills, growing a grandma club on Instagram or swagging it out at the local bowling green in front of the retiree’s. My grandma cared about her family so very much.
Here’s the thing: she saw everybody she encountered in life as her family. It was her goal to take care of her family and be there for them when they needed it. My grandma changed the meaning of family through her example.
Overuse your phone — to make phone calls
Before being addicted to phones was cool, grandma was an addict.
The phone she used was off-white, with a rotary dial. Even when better models became available, she kept her old phone for decades after. If she was still alive, then she’d still be dialing one number at a time while waiting for the dial to spin back into the starting position. Watching the phone dial was meditative and calming in itself.
Every day she would be on the phone talking to her friends. She valued human connection and always spent a stupid amount of time listening and genuinely asking what other people were up to.
She practiced the power of saying less not because it was cool, but because she cared. People loved talking to her on the phone because she cared.
Couldn’t we all care just a tiny bit more?
Eat food you make, not delivered by Uber
Knowing what went into food was something grandma was conscious of. I don’t think she ever ate takeaway food in her life.
Convenience didn’t mean anything if the joy of preparing a meal and knowing its nutritional makeup wasn’t possible.
Do the small things well
Grandma didn’t do huge things in her life. She didn’t touch the hearts of millions of people all at once with her wisdom. Instead, she touched people’s hearts one by one in a non-sequential order.
It was thousands of small steps and habits that led to the legacy she left. You can’t tie any event or result back to one particular moment.
You can still live life if your partner dies
My grandma spent a large amount of her life without her husband.
She never saw the need to find another man and was happy just being alive. There were days where she thought about him but it was never a moment of sadness; only a moment of joy.
We’re led to believe that we need a partner to make our life complete, yet my grandma was the perfect example of someone who was just fine on her own knitting jumpers.
Start the day early
Every time I would stay at grandma’s, she’d be up at 6 am every day.
She liked to get ahead of the day and by 9 am she’d done more than my brother and I would do in an entire week at school. There was something about getting up early that excited her.
Having the freedom to be up early was a simple pleasure she enjoyed and she never expected anyone to follow her lead.
Pass a gift on to the next generation
This article is what she passed onto me in her dying hours. There was no giant paycheque, just these life lessons.
She knew somehow that these lessons would be more powerful than showering me with money she didn’t have anyway. Now her gift is living through me and those who knew her in small and strange ways.
I love you grandma. Rest in peace while we make a muck here on Earth and you look down seeing your wisdom in action.