When I met Bruce he told me to be prepared for an overwhelming experience when I met his family. He added to that that his mother talked a lot and he was sure that the way Poppa Jim coped was be deaf. He also added that although she talked a lot she had a heart of gold and she would give anyone her shirt of her back.
So let me tell you about this shirt. I stayed with Granny while I worked in Hamilton. Her kindness knew no bounds and I just came and went as work demanded. Towards the end of my stay I admired the shirt she had on. I said it was lovely on her….I was completely taken by surprise when she asked if I would like it. Of course I told her I didn’t, it was hers. She would not hear of me not taking it. In my job I wore only white shirts and I think she wanted to brighten me up. I admired the shirt and that was enough for her generous heart to respond with the only way she knew how…by giving.
I believe this is one of thousands examples of how Granny operated.
One day I found myself thinking about Granny and her generation of women. They were pioneers, working beside their husbands supporting them and raising their families. For some reason it had never registered with me that we baby boomer kids were the first generation after a most horrific war and our parents were the people who rebuilt society after the war had taken thousands of men and scarred those who returned and those who stayed. If not physically then in other ways.
So where does Granny fit into all this? She was a woman of that time.
We have already heard about the amazing things Granny did during the time she and Poppa Jim were in Ministry. They lived through terrible times of hardship yet I never heard her complain of that. Nor did I ever hear her talk of the things she did. Boasting was not her thing. What she did was what you do.
Yet I seriously believe that if she was born a generation or two later she would have quite a different life story. While in her time she built retirement homes, respite care and the Narrows Camp I can just see her doing those things as a professional woman, making her mark in a different way but still in Granny’s way with social good outcomes to match her values.
So how can we honour such a remarkable woman? Now I am talking to the girls and women here today. We owe to Granny and to people like her to put our hearts and souls into making this world a better place for us having been here. We owe it to them to discover what our purpose in life is and to get on with making it happen. We owe it to that generation of women to take the world a step further to being the kind of place we want future generations to inherit. We owe it to them to discover what it is we can offer, what our purpose is and to get on with it. Granny made the best of what she was given in life and left an amazing legacy. Let that be our aim also. Let that be the legacy she leaves with us. Know yourself, be yourself, know your purpose and get on with it.
The thing that really struck me when I lived with Granny was her extraordinary selflessness. I want to tell you a story about that.
I worked at The Hamilton Club. It’s gone now but while I was managing it we had a tight budget and the alarm was not that reliable. It kept going off and I would get calls in the middle of the night to go down and check it. The first time this happened, I tip toed about the place, getting into track pants and sweatshirt in the dark. I turned around and almost bumped into Granny. I got a hell of a fright. She wanted to know what was going on.
I explained the alarm had gone off and I was on my way down to the club to check it.
‘I’m coming with you,’ said the 80 year old with dodgy eye sight.
Despite me telling her I didn’t think this was a good idea, she insisted.
So down we went for that alarm and every other.
What burglars would have thought of us had there been any I have no idea. At least we had Granny’s walking stick to protect ourselves if we needed it.
And all that talking? Well I have no doubt in my mind that someone as highly intelligent as Granny would have soaked up knowledge and shared it with others in another time. All her political debating, arguing with talk back show hosts and questioning of the status quo tells me she had a brain that ran at a 1000 miles an hour and the only way to get it out was to talk about it.
Granny, you can rest now. NO more burglar alarms to get up to and no other reasons to tarry in this world with its demands and struggles.
The one thing I hope is that there is a patch of garden where you can grow your roses or maybe you will quietly work alongside all the gardeners in this world, telling them when to plant and when to harvest.