Most of us come from modest backgrounds. In the midst of the worst recession of my lifetime, I think back to the lives of my grandparents, on both sides, and how difficult they were.
Above is a photograph of my Grandma Weir's wedding ring. The few people I've ever showed it to just shake their heads at how inexpensive and simple it is.
She was the wife of a farmer and they lived in a tiny house on the small plot of Canadian land they farmed.
They had six kids; her husband (whose name I bear) died young. Nothing about her life, start to finish, was easy.
She died in a rest home in her 90s. I don't know why or how I got her ring; perhaps after her death my Dad (her youngest child) was given it, and maybe he then gave it to me.
It's odd that I don't remember these details. It bothers me.
I have only a few other items from my father's life, including a packet of old black-and-white photos and some hand-written pages of a novel he had wanted to write. Plus a few of the golf balls he initialed on the last night of his life.
The second photo tonight is of a Day of the Dead poster his youngest grandchild made honoring my father recently. The two of them never met; she was a tiny infant when he died the night before I had hoped to introduce them.
But I'm quite sure they would have been fast friends had their times on this planet overlapped. They share a sunny disposition, an optimism, and an easy love of other people.
My father's life, from a material standpoint, was easier than his father's. He also lived much longer, into his 80s.
Almost all of us in the so-called middle classes in America are trying to come to grips with reduced expectations about our lifestyles going forward, and despite any personal stress this is causing me personally, I recognize that this is a good thing for us as a whole.
For too long, we've been the world's voracious consumers, swallowing every good sent our way. Our rate of savings has been too low, and our credit card/mortgage/personal debt way too high.
As I confront a set of rather difficult choices in my time, I think back on my ancestors, and then I don't feel so bad. Every generation faces its challenge. The answers for me may lie way back there, when they coped with scarcity and hardship we can barely imagine.
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1 comment:
despite any personal stress this is causing me personally, I recognize that this is a good thing for us as a whole.
it is amazing when we are able to come to this conclusion- that although something causes personal pain or stress or discomfort- it is good for us. And this is the truth! To often we have been fed with the falsehood that 'good' things are all those things which 'feel' good- or make our life smoother- this (often) cannot be farther from the truth.
Excellent post!!
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