October 2016: With my grandmother when she was 90.
COVID-19 has claimed the first life in our immediate family. The last of my four grandparents passed away a week ago. It has left a void and vacuum unlike before as it signified the passing of a generation and signaled that moment in time when the succeeding generations have to take a step forward. The present situation has just made the loss all the more difficult to bear—unable to be physically present during a time of grief and resort to familiarity for solace. Mother’s Day coming around within a week of her passing reopened wounds still struggling to heal.
But amidst all this, what has also been impossible to ignore is the strong legacy that she has left behind. My grandmother is survived by every one of her children, their spouses, grandchildren and great grandchild, all healthy and well; not one was lost. And above all, she has left in her wake an exemplary life worthy of emulation to stand as a guiding beacon even in her absence.
So here are my top 5 life lessons that I’ve learned from my grandmother, in no particular order:
1. To be time conscious
Growing up, my mother constantly reminded my brother and I the value of every passing minute. And my grandmother was the oft quoted living example. For instance, she never went to any appointment without a book in hand or her sewing kit. She anticipated wait times and made sure that she had sufficiently equipped herself for worthwhile use of the wait. In her able years up until she turned 90, I don’t ever remember seeing her idle around or while away time. Time was a precious resource worthy of only deliberate consumption.
My grandmother was all about productivity even before it became a thing. She had well established continuously improving systems for everything—task management, inventory management, library management, etc.
2. To be a perpetual student and pay it forward
My grandmother had a curious mind and was always pursuing some form of learning and experimentation in her areas of interests, well into her late 80s and until dementia made things difficult for her. She constantly had a dictionary at her work desk and used it actively to look up pronunciations and build on her vocabulary. Be it gardening, art, cooking, literature, her enthusiasm never waned as long as she was able.
She also believed in paying it forward. She was the founding member of numerous women’s organizations and was constantly looking for ways to empower and raise others up. She was an inspiration to many while she was with us and continues to be so.
3. To wield an indomitable spirit
My grandmother was a personification of enthusiasm and will power. Arthritis and chronic knee pain didn’t stop her from traveling the world—be it taking the city bus to the neighboring town to pursue her community activities even in her 80s, or travel to Europe, USA and to other states within India. Slow to anger, she was a sport and was always game for worthwhile pursuits. Games, sports, theater—she was up for it all. A fountain of positive thinking, she avoided rumor, gossip, fault finding and backbiting like the plague. And was vigilant to ensure that her children were not raised exposed to it.
In a nutshell, she journeyed to heaven celebrating life and its goodness!
4. To sustain a thriving social network
As young kids, traveling to a different city with my grandmother meant being dragged along to peoples’ homes while they engaged in boring adult talk. Growing up, I didn’t realize that I was seeing a master networker in action.
Even in the absence of mobile phones and social media, my grandmother had an active, global social network comprising men and women. She relied on two methods: writing, what we would call today, snail mails and paying regular visits to her friends. If she traveled to another town or city for any reason, she made it a point to get in touch with all her contacts and paid them a visit. She had mastered the art of networking and winning friends way before it became a touted topic at B-schools and the corporate world.
5. To build habits and discipline
My grandmother knew what it took to build habits. Though she never quite used the terminologies that we have today, she used variants of habit stacking, cues and reward systems to inculcate habits in her children and grandchildren.
Fortunately for me, my grandmother did a pretty darn neat job of passing on her values and principles to her children as well. And I have my mother as an excellent embodiment of all these and more. So while my grandmother will be sorely missed, I’ll have the pleasure of watching her legacy outlast her time.