An Interview With My Grandmother, pt 3

     Last week, Grandma told us about her first full time job at Consolidated Handbags, meeting the man who would become her husband, and the various mishaps her two children got into. If you missed that post, click here. 
     In this final interview with my grandmother, she shares some closing words about how things have changed since she was young, what she would tell her younger self, and what legacy she hopes to leave for her children. 

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Gloria: So how has the world changed since you were young?

Grandma: Oh, tremendously! It went from… laughs Just to put it very briefly, it went from a wall phone in the general store that you had to crank up, to now, I have a phone in my pocket! Laughs So there's been a lot of technology since I was little girl. Cars were not as plentiful as they are today. Washing machines, dryers, were not available at the time. They are so common now, that people just don’t even appreciate them. The most spectacular thing was to see the man on the moon. That was awesome.

Gl: What was that like?

Gr: Well... chuckles. My husband George was very interested in it but I was so busy being a homemaker that I didn’t really pay much attention. But on the day that the man landed on the moon, I had the flu. And I was halfway asleep and George woke me up, he says, “You got to watch this, you got to watch this!” And it was the landing on the moon. That was just… I mean whoever heard of man going to the moon?! And there it was right before my eyes.

Gl: That is so neat! So what is your opinion on modern technology?


Gr: Well there are good things, and there are bad things. A lot of good things come from it, medicines that make life easier, but at the same time, man’s involved and corrupted a lot of those things that were good. They helped in one way, but in another they were very destructive. Man takes a good thing and makes a bad thing out of it.

Gl: Yeah, that’s the way it is with a lot of things unfortunately. What were some life-changing moments in your life?

Gr: The most life-changing thing? When I got married. Laughs When I got married… that was just a whole new life for me. It’s an unplanned journey. It’s a journey that takes two to make, especially if you have family, if you have children. And I taught them, I taught my children… how much they picked up, how much they retained in their brain, I don’t know. But now that they’re grown, I can see that they did listen to some things. And it’s always been surprising to me when they come about and say, “Oh, you were right.” Laughs I was right?! It’s good for the parent to hear that they did something right in their children’s lives. But sometimes they don’t really have to say it, I see it, in what they do or what they don’t do. It’s very gratifying.

Gl: What are some things that you would tell your younger self?

Gr: That I was worth something. I didn’t know it, because no one ever told me you did a good job, there was no affirmation as to whether I did good or not. That’s the thing that plagued me the most. It had a good influence and it had a negative influence. Because it just seemed that I could never do enough for anybody to notice. My son told me, “Mom, you did the job so well, that’s why they used you more to do the job.” And I never looked at it that way. But he put it in a good perspective. And I found that out when I worked and had a serious job. I saw that the better I did, the more they would look to me to do the job and, like he says, because you did a good job, because you were trustworthy, that’s why you got more. I never thought about it that way.

Gl: Hm, yeah that makes sense. So what legacy do you  hope to leave for your children and grandchildren?

Gr: Seek the Lord. Seek the Lord. It’s never too early to seek the Lord.

Gl: Yeah, that’s the main thing. If you could give one piece of advice to young people everywhere today, what would it be?

Gr: All young people? Not just my children?

Gl: Yeah.

Gr: Same thing, seek the Lord! Chuckling There is no other way, just seek the Lord. Since the Lord saved me, these have been the best days of my life. Because my life changed totally and completely when He saved me.

Gl: Wow, that’s quite a testimony.

Gr: It wasn’t an all of a sudden thing, God doesn’t work that way. Little step at a time, step at a time. One Bible teacher, Mr. Harold Camping, said that we'll study and then we feel like we’re just not getting anywhere, we’re not learning anything. And he says, it’s like climbing a mountain. Occasionally, look down to where you were and where you are now. You’ve made progress. And that was a very good piece of advice for the baby Christian just beginning the walk. I expected to learn very quickly, and I learned as the more I read, it doesn’t happen quickly. Time, it takes time.