I was fortunate enough to grow up with two amazing, loving grandmothers: Nellie Anna Briscoe and Lola Mae Thompson.
Lola, my maternal grandmother, was born in 1926 in a tiny town in Texas, while Nellie was born in 1916 on a South Dakota ranch. They both came from humble country beginnings and did everything they could to help provide for their family.
As a kid growing up, these were women who loved me unconditionally, who always praised my indecipherable drawings, who came to see the school plays, and who spoiled me with too many things I didn't really need.
They weren't quite as adventurous as the grandmothers who agreed to be filmed smoking pot for the first time, but they always made me smile.
Without a doubt, I never really appreciated how lucky I was to have such incredible, strong, loving women in my life until I no longer had them. We unfortunately lost Grandma Nellie in 1998 and Grandma Lola in 2006.
I was in the room moments before Grandma Lola passed away from cancer and spent the next year or so feeling incredibly wracked with guilt. I was a selfish college student when she passed on, and I was more focused on my social life and advancing my career than getting to know this woman who had sacrificed so much so that I could even have that opportunity.
Thinking about all my regrets regarding these unconditionally loving women sent me into a depression: I knew so little about them and I never took advantage of all the knowledge they had to give.
In their honor and memory, I've written them a letter. I hope that someone will read this and be reminded that there's no time like the present to reach out to our older loved ones so that we can take advantage of their years of experience.
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That's Nellie on the left and Lola on the right.
Dear Grandma Lola and Grandma Nellie,
I hope this letter isn’t too little, too late. There’s so much, now that I’m older, that I would love to ask you and say to you.
To start, I’d love to hear your life stories. One of you was 13 when the Great Depression hit America, and Lola, you were only 3 years old.
History lessons and documentaries pale in comparison to the real-life accounts you must have been able to share with me. I think I might have thought of you as “old-fashioned” growing up, but now I wish I could have learned more about where you came from and hear it directly from your mouths.
Not only would I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about a bygone era, but I think it would have helped me appreciate just how hard you’d worked and how far you had come.
You must have had some amazing stories about being a child during those days, and I wish I could pass them on to my children. They may not care until they get older either, but at least the stories would be passed on.
Not only do I crave to hear tales about your childhood, but you have experienced major changes in our world. You have first-hand accounts of major events like the Civil Rights Movement, World War II, the era of “Free Love,” the Red Scare, the advent of the internet, and the first time households owned televisions.
I love historical documentaries, but I missed the opportunity to hear the firsthand account of these major events from your point of view. I always appreciated my history class, but it's only now that I realize the best teachers were just a quick phone call away.
Beyond your own lives, I wish I had asked you about your grandparents and ancestors. It seems that so much of my family's histories are lost to the years — no one is really sure what our family was doing in the 1800s, or even beyond that. I hate that our family history could die out from apathy, and I hope that stops with me.
Websites constantly publish articles where centenarians are asked what their biggest life regrets are and what life lessons they most want to share with younger generations. I wonder what your answers would be.
And how foolish of me to not pry you for some embarrassing stories about my parents! I really wish I had some of those so I could have had some better ammunition as a teenager.
Lola, you had a multi-decade career with the police department while raising two kids, and Nellie, you worked every day on the farm while raising five kids. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on what a woman is capable of so that I can pass down that knowledge to my future daughters.
I think I assumed you were “behind the times” when it came to modern life, but I never accounted for how valuable real-life experience is.
Grandma Nellie, thank you for always playing cards with me and for always shipping me Christmas and birthday gifts. I know that the older you got, the more financially and physically burdensome it became to make treks to the post office to ship these gifts, but you never disappointed.
I lived farther away than your other grandchildren, but you never treated me any differently. You made every single grandchild feel special, loved, and protected. I wish I had more time to know you as an adult.
Most importantly, thank you for raising my dad to be the incredible man he is.
Grandma Lola, I don’t know what your secret was with that green bean casserole and your cinnamon toast, but I wish I had those recipes written down. I’m sorry I didn’t visit your church often to sing with you in the choir, but I want you to know that I always enjoyed watching you sing.
I wish I had talked to you so much more during those final years, but I want you to know I think of you often and I have a picture of you in uniform right when you walk into my apartment, so I’m reminded of you every day.
Thank you especially for helping to shape the sweet, generous woman that I’m proud to call my mother.
I apologize to both of you that I didn’t call as often as I should have and that, when I did, the conversations were often too abrupt, but more than that I thank you for loving me enough that you didn’t mind.
Thank you for singing me to sleep, tucking me in, and convincing my parents I was just “being a kid” whenever I misbehaved.
Of course, I can’t carry this regret with me every day. Instead, I'm going to spend every day feeling grateful for the time I've been able to spend with you.
I hope that people read this and take time to call their grandmothers today so they can ask them questions, get to know them better, and to be able to pass down their family stories.
Thank you both for the love you gave me. I never said it enough, but it’s true: I love you.
Please SHARE to remind someone of the importance of a grandmother's love!
