Watching Cows and Hummingbirds: Life lessons from Grandma

I grew up with the perfect childhood. I admit it, I was beyond blessed with a loving, kind, generous family all the way around on both sides. My family and upbringing were in fact so loving and so kind, I thought it would last forever.

My paternal grandparents lived and worked on “the farm” as we call it. Grandpa’s homestead was established in 1903 and has been a sacred haven for the Hoover family ever since. As a child, it was not unusual for my brother and I to go to the farm in the morning with Dad (who was going there for work) and spend the day with our grandparents. While my brother was out checking cattle and helping Grandpa, I stayed inside the house with Grandma and learned from helping her. Together, we’d spend the day watering the flowers, working on crafts, reading and always, always, always, we’d bake cookies. I cannot recall a single day where I went to Grandma’s house and there wasn’t a fresh batch of cookies in a rectangle Tupperware box sitting at the end of the table, ready for whoever might find them. You see, Grandma’s house was a very special place. Every day, without fail, she prepared a homemade German dinner (which is the old southern word for lunch). This dinner would be ready at 12:30 every day and if you were around, you were welcome. My dad, my Uncle Steven, Grandpa and my brother and I were often there, especially during the hot Oklahoma summers.

I feel so fortunate to have spent so many “ordinary” days with Grandma, as I believe it truly was a blessing to learn from watching her in her day-to-day life. Because that’s when life happens, right? In the simple, ordinary, day-to-day moments.

In the evenings Grandma always took a walk down the old country road next to the house. Again, anyone who was there was welcome to join her and together we’d walk down to the cemetery and back, watching the dogs and the cats play as we went. Throughout every single day of her life, my grandmother had a stillness about her that I cannot explain. A stillness that can only come from having solid all-knowing peace in the depths of your heart. Even in her last days on earth, she carried this deafening presence of peace with her. In her presence, time always stopped – unless of course you were on your way to church, then you’d better hurry up a bit.

It is now, over a year since her passing, that I find myself really, really missing her and thinking about her in the day-to-day, seemingly ordinary moments of my life. As Tyler and I have taken on a six-week housesitting gig, we’ve really enjoyed a more relaxing, slower pace of life outside of the van. Life on the road is constant. Every moment you are working, moving, deciding, crafting. There is no time to worry about the little things because you’re too busy making a life out of scratch; fighting the wind so you can boil water for your morning cup of coffee, flipping through guidebooks trying to figure out the best route to your next destination, talking to other campers asking for the next best free camp destination. Life on the road is fun, all-encompassing and makes you feel alive. But just like all seasons in life, things change and so do we.

In the moments of house-sitting I’ve found myself slowing way down, reading much more and enjoying the lovely things like hot water from a sink and never-ending cups of tea all throughout the day. With our basic needs met, Tyler and I have relaxed into a deeper peace within ourselves. We walk the dog twice a day out in nature, we cook together three delicious and nutritious meals a day and, in the meantime, I read, bake cookies and work on art projects. Maybe this is why the spirit of my Grandmother has been on my mind.

As a seventeen-year-old girl, I did something out of character and signed up for the Miss Frederick pageant. Part of the pageant included answering an on-stage question, which was somewhat spontaneous, meaning we were given a sheet of paper with ten questions on it a day or two before the pageant. Our onstage question would be one of these ten questions but we wouldn’t know which one until the night of the pageant. Being the personality that I am, I love a good impromptu speech and so I scanned the questions, had an answer ready but did not formally prepare anything.

My question was: “If you could trade places with anyone for a day, who would it be and why?” Now the answer I had previously decided on was my Grandmother, because I loved how at ease and simple her lifestyle was. She didn’t seem to have that rushy feeling hanging on her all the time like I did. I truly believed there was something in her that I desired to find for myself, and that’s what I wanted to articulate to the judges and the audience that night.

Instead, what came out of my mouth was this: “If I could trade places with anyone for a day, I would choose my Grandma, so I could be at rest and at peace.” The audience let out a collective “aww” which confused me a bit, but I held my bright smile, pushed my shoulders back and confidently walked off-stage, thinking I had nailed it! When I was safely behind the curtain, two women who were helping with the pageant came over and held my hand with huge sympathetic eyes. “That was so sweet of you to say,” one of them said as she pulled me in for a hug while the other rubbed my back. Unsure of what was going on, I asked what I had said, and it was then that we all figured out I had made a faux-pa. My Grandmother wasn’t dead and I didn’t want to be in a cemetery! In fact, my Grandmother was alive and well, sitting in the audience, cheering on both me and my cousin (who won first place, by the way). And yet for some reason I still desire to be a public speaker.

I believe our souls choose the people in our lives whom we’re meant to learn from and I believe these lessons can come at all different stages, phases and seasons throughout our time here on earth. This month I’m feeling particularly called to the lessons I’ve learned from my Grandma Hoover, and so I thought I’d share a few of those wise nuggets here with you today.

1. The Sweetness of Doing Nothing

In the best-selling book, “Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert takes a trip to Italy and learns the Italian phrase and way of being that is “dolce far niente” which translates to, “the sweetness of doing nothing.” In the film inspired by the book, Julia Roberts character finds her pleasure in the still moments of sitting in the floor, reading a newspaper and eating a delicious hand-prepared meal. If there is one base message I received from my Grandmother’s life, it was that there is insane amounts of pleasure, peace, abundance and delight in the moments when we aren’t’ doing a thing. Grandma and Grandpa spent so many hours of their lives sitting on the front porch, simply watching the cows and the hummingbirds. In a life of constant consumption and shuffling from this to that, it’s easy to overlook the depths of peace and understanding that come from still moments like these. Perhaps the MOST productive thing you can do today, is to make time for nothing.

2. Creativity is a way of being

I wouldn’t call Grandma an artist in the traditional sense of the word. She didn’t paint or sell her creations or claim to be anything other than a woman having fun with crafts. And that she did – she found a way to bring arts and crafts into her everyday life, whether through baking cookies from scratch, creating a new stuffing recipe, or by dying Easter eggs with her grandchildren. Grandma dabbled in quilting and cross stitch and cake-decorating and many things. I never saw her criticize herself or put pressure on herself to create more or better, she simply weaved the magic of creating into her everyday coming and going. She embodied creativity as a way of being rather than a necessary task item.

3. Faith and Devotion make all the rest possible

Grandma had notebooks and notebooks full of her hand-written notes from studying the Bible and the Christian faith. In church on Sundays, I remember watching in surprise as she would close her eyes and raise her hands (something that was quite a fierce action in the Southern Baptist church I was raised in). But I always knew she meant it. Grandma didn’t put on a show for anybody about anything, she was deep and solid and grounded in every area of her life. I know in my bones that it was her sincere devotion to something bigger than herself that gave her these qualities and characteristics. You can’t master creativity as a way of being or the sweetness of doing nothing if you aren’t first resting in the sweet surrender of something higher than what you know.

4. Loyalty to her mate

Grandma and Grandpa sure didn’t see eye-to-eye on everything. I remember her always saying that she was the optimist and Grandpa was the pessimist. Despite their disagreements, I never saw her disrespect or love Grandpa any less. Day in and day out they spent their evenings side by side, either in the recliners watching the news or on the porch watching nature. She never wavered in her devotion to the man she’d chosen to spend her life with and that, to me, is something worth noting.

5. The tender touch of a gardener’s hand

Tying it all together, Grandma exhibited all of these core characteristics as she’d tirelessly wake up each morning and spend time loving and caring for the flowers in her garden. This same tender touch is what raised five amazing children, thirteen grandchildren and many great grandchildren. Each flower, child and plant had a special place in her life and received special love and attention as only she could give. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all gave one another the soft gift of our presence at each and every interaction? We’d surely know only love.

To Grandma Hoover, every moment was a gift. Her simplicity in life is what made her and her home a sacred space for those of us who most needed it. As I am on the ever-changing journey of my own life, I can’t help but pause and reflect on these “ways of being” that my Grandmother mastered. I believe this is truly living a meaningful life and I want to have each of these qualities throughout my own life. It’s all too easy to speed things up, to rush to get things done and then criticize yourself for your work or lack thereof, but the true secret to happiness, fulfillment, peace and purpose, is finding the deep peace within yourself and offering it as loving kindness to others.