Question

Easy on advice of grandmother

Answer 1

Just before my maternal grandmother died at the age of 95, I kissed her cheek and thanked her for her wisdom. I had carried one particular odd piece of advice with me all of my life. It had been on Independence Day, when I was nine or ten years old, that she whispered an odd warning, borne of a distant Russian wisdom, which ruled and guided my life for the next four decades. Now, at 95, she was far from the poetic woman of my youth. She lived under the delusion that she was in a Miami hotelShe had used lipstick as a rouge to color her pale face, and was quite a shock to behold when I turned the corner on the seventh floor of her retirement home. She asked with childlike innocence if I could bring her new makeup and big diamond jewelry for her to wear. Cautiously, I asked her, "What type of diamond jewelry?" She responded, "Expensive, fancy jewelry." She lived under the delusion that she was in a Miami hotel, one that slouched on basic standards. "The meals at this hotel are terrible, but what is a person to do?" She didn’t realize she was in a nursing home near the beach in Coney Island, Brooklyn. Now that she’d reached advanced age, death looming, I wanted her to know that I loved her, how her advice had molded me. As a child, I cherished ideas, and a few philosophers touched my early soul. Dr. Seuss competed with Grandma. He once wrote, "Be who you are and say what you think, because those who matter don't mind, and those who mind, don't matter!" My other favorite philosopher was sitting in a wheelchair, arms propped with a pillow and an alarm that would alert nurses if she pitched forward and left her chair's fixed position.