Celebrate The Dash!

Grandma Peabody, born 1910-died 1996. The DASH IN BETWEEN is what is important. Her birth and death are just dates. The dash is her life and that is what we celebrate. My grandma was an amazing person. She had a way of making each person believe that they were her absolute favorite. Of course, I really was her favorite! Being with Grandma was always a good time. Each of us cherished having sleepovers at her house, where she acted like she had nothing else to do but hang out and listen to you. Heck, she could even make going to the grocery store or running errands for Grandpa seem special. So many memories were from sleepovers at her house or running errands. Once she was in a hurry at the grocery store. The bag boy had just put the groceries in the trunk. She jumped in the car and noticed there was no steering wheel. She was in the back seat!


I could write a book about my grandma, but let me introduce her to you with a few, well chosen highlights from her life.

My grandma loved her coffee. She would take a sip and say, "Ah, sustenance". She didn't drink water because she believed it would rust her pipes. She was a coffee drinker, period. Grandma loved her coffee, and she believed kids could drink it only if they drank it black. If you didn't drink it black you couldn't drink it. That was her motto. She had a wonderful collection of beautiful china cups and saucers that she would let us drink out of. I don't think any ever got broken because even when we were very young we knew these were treasures that she graciously shared with us.

Grandma Peabody had absolutely no sense of taste or smell. More than once Grandma ate rancid cottage cheese or some other disgusting food that had gone bad. So she was always having one of us kids taste stuff for her. When my oldest son was 2 weeks old she popped the lemon from her iced tea in his mouth just to make sure he could taste it. When his little face scrunched all up, she was satisfied that he was an ok baby.

She laid on the floor every day and took a 10 minute nap with her feet propped up on the davenport (couch). If one of us kids was supposed to take a nap with her, she would grip our wrist, so we had to stay put. Even asleep, she had a death grip, so you could not escape. As we tried to wiggle away she would just say our name in a low voice, our full, God given name. BARBARA! Then we would just give up and fall asleep.

Grandma could get so engrossed in a book that she blocked out everything around her. We used to test her concentration by saying all kinds of weird, annoying things. But she never heard us. Once in Oak Creek, she was laying in bed reading and didn't even know that the lamp beside the bed had caught the curtains on fire. Thank God for my mom's keen sniffer. The black burn marks on the wall from that fire still remind us of Grandma. Memories of her still make us smile.

At my Grandma Peabody's funeral, Natalie was 6 and tried to take care of all of us. She helped Grandpa on with his shoes and during the service went from one lap to another comforting everyone. At the funeral, the pastor said we were not there to talk about her birth in 1910 or her death in 1996 but the DASH in between. The DASH was her life and the people she loved in her life. He shared wonderful memories of Grandma that day. All of them related how she lived her life to make others feel special.

Each of us are living the DASH IN BETWEEN right now. What is important is how we impact those around us with our laughter and love. I, personally, want others to remember me as someone who lived my DASH for others, not myself. I want each person I touch to think they are my favorite, just like Grandma made us feel.

In Him,
Joyful
2-4-2010