Great Grandmother Gill Kept Her Joy

My great grandmother on my mother’s side was a very special person. She was probably in her 80’s or 90’s when I was a child. I thought she was really old and that is amazing because when my grandmother was that age – she was still cooking family dinners without anyone helping her.
I always called my great grandmother: “Grandma Gill”. She always sat in her chair and smiled or spent her day going through her desk looking at old photos, papers and cards that she had received. She loved her grandkids and great-grandkids and always had butterscotch candy available for us. She just enjoyed watching us play. One Easter I had spent the night and the next morning she enjoyed watching the children playing hide and seek with the Easter candy and eggs. She just sat there and smiled as we colored the eggs. There were no rules – of course we were taught not to destroy things and to clean up messes we made. There was an old pedal organ in one of the back rooms and one of the other favorite ways to pass time was to play the organ. It was probably a blessing she couldn’t hear the music because none of us had any idea how to play the organ – so you can use your imagination to understand how awful it probably sounded. I will always treasure those memories because when things are tough as an adult –childhood memories are blessing from the Lord.
Grandma Gill lived during the time before modern appliances. She had arthritis – I believe it was the type that cripples – in her hands and she could barely walk. Her hands were so crippled she could not straighten them – but was still able to use them to pick up things. I never heard her complain about pain or the life she had lived. She just always smiled.
She lived with my grandmother for a period of time. My grandmother paid me .75 cents and hour (those were excellent wages for a pre-teen in the 1960’s) to stay with her while she ran errands. I watched TV and grandma Gill sat there smiled and continued with her routine of looking at photo’s, cards and papers. It was amazing because she looked at each item as if it was the first time she had seen it. I think the lesson I learned from her was no matter what happens in life – don’t let it take your JOY away. I think she was probably living in her own world of happy times of an earlier period in her life. Many times people who are older are not easy to be around because they are always complaining or finding fault. So, as I grow old I pray I will embrace it as my great grandma Gill did and keep my JOY until the end.