The Nuanced Life: Celebrating Our Grandmothers

There’s so much to celebrate about the older members of our communities, particularly within our own families. In this episode, Sarah talks to her grandmother about her life and Beth commemorates her beloved Grandmother Joy.

*This episode contains conversation about pregnancy and miscarriage.

Thank you for being a part of our community! We couldn't do it without you. To support the show, please subscribe to our Premium content on our Patreon page or Apple Podcasts Subscriptions, or share the word about our work in your circles. Sign up for our newsletter or follow us on Instagram to keep up with everything happening in the world of Pantsuit Politics. You can find information and links for all our sponsors on our website.

EPISODE RESOURCES

• Learn more about our speaking events by visiting our website or emailing us at hello@pantsuitpoliticsshow.com.

This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.

TRANSCRIPT

Beth [00:00:00] Hello friends. Thanks for listening to today's episode. Before it begins, we want to let you know that this episode includes discussion of loss, grief, and pregnancy. So if you're not in a place to hear that right now, we totally understand. Thank you so much for being here.  

[00:00:15] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:00:19] This is Sarah Stewart Holland.  

Beth [00:00:21] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:22] You're listening to The Nuanced Life, a Pantsuit Politics production.  

Beth [00:00:42] Thank you so much for joining us today for another episode of our limited return of The Nuanced Life. We're down to the final two episodes in this series. It's really been fun for us to make. We hope that you have enjoyed it as much as we have. We've loved commemorating your big and small moments, and today we're going to commemorate a bit from our own lives. Two episodes back, we talked about caregiving, and sometimes it's easy to kind of park there when we're thinking about older members in our family, to just center the conversation on the difficulties of supporting the last years of their lives. But there is so much more to them and so much more to those relationships. So today we want to celebrate older women in our lives. Sarah is going to share a conversation she had with her grandmother, her Mema, who is in her 80s and still living a very active life in Paducah. Mema is so much fun to be around. It is the kind of conversation that I would give a lot to have with my grandmother, Joy, who was so special and dear to me. She passed away nine years ago, and so at the end, I've written a little something about my grandmother Joy, to share with all of you too, so that she is present in this episode as she still is in my life, even though she's no longer physically here with me.  

[00:01:53] But before all of that, I want to remind you that Sarah and I are available for speaking events. We still have some openings this fall. We would love to join your company, your school, your church, your organization to talk about having hard conversations in ways that strengthen relationships. It does not have to be political. We are happy to help walk your group through this election season together, but we understand that there is a lot going on in the world right now, and we want to be out there helping people grow stronger relationships, whether that is in the context of politics or not. Even if you've reached out before and the timing or the pricing wasn't right, we hope you'll get in touch with us again. We would love to be with as many of you as possible this fall, and help you in this season that is filled with difficult conversations that can really help us move forward if we will lean into them with grace. Send Alise an email at Hello@Pantsuitpoliticsshow.com and we'll get you connected. Up next, it's Sarah and her Mema, Betty Skidmore [sp].  

Sarah [00:02:59] Do you care if I ask you how old you are?  

Sarah's Mema [00:03:01] I'm 88.  

Sarah [00:03:03] Eighty-eight.  

Sarah's Mema [00:03:04] You don't want to tell your age until you get to the point where you're on bonus years, and then you kind of brag then. Like, I should have died statistically at 77.  

Sarah [00:03:15] Is that the age for American right now?  

Sarah's Mema [00:03:18] Right now it is. I think that's about it. So that means that I've had 11 bonus years.  

Sarah [00:03:23] Bonus years? How does it feel to be 88?  

Sarah's Mema [00:03:26] Somedays it really feels bad. I've just gone through a thing. I did the Whole30 religiously. I had a man in my house building up a tower shower, which took about two plus weeks. A very nice man. Excellent. But he was in my house. And the very day that I finished the Whole30 and he finished the shower, my nose started running like a faucet. And I have been sort of down and out from that day on. I was starting to feel absolutely wonderful. I was going to this exercise program for senior citizens called Silver Sneakers at the gym. I was going on Tuesday and Thursday to do a workout that was a Christmas present from my family with a personal trainer. So I was doing all these things right, and then bam. So you know what they say about making plans. If you want to hear God laugh, make a plan.  

Sarah [00:04:28] It does feel like small physical things that don't seem like a big deal in obviously your 40s will really work you out. 

Sarah's Mema [00:04:36] Yes.  

Sarah [00:04:38] And that must be hard.  

Sarah's Mema [00:04:39] Well, it's hard. I was to the point before I did start the Whole30 I could work for 20, 30 minutes and then I'd just sit down. I've always been basically lazy. I have to push myself. I don't have that energy that some people are born with like my mother, who looked at me one time when she was about 85 and said, "I'm tired." And I said, "Well, yeah." She said, no, I've never been tired. I didn't know what people were talking about.  

Sarah [00:05:07] Oh, wow.  

Sarah's Mema [00:05:08] But she was big frame and short and she just never sat down. She never rushed, but she never sat down.  

Sarah [00:05:17] Let's talk about her. Let's go back to the beginning.  

Sarah's Mema [00:05:21] The beginning.  

Sarah [00:05:22] The beginning.  

Sarah's Mema [00:05:23] My first memory?  

Sarah [00:05:24] Yeah. I don't know my first memory.  

Sarah's Mema [00:05:26] I was born in a house on a farm that my dad was leasing, renting, whatever. He was basically a tenant farmer. They had torn the old house down, and just built a new one there. The insurance company had repossessed a lot of farm land. It was still depression when I was born. And so, we lived there until, probably best I can figure out, around two. And we moved to a farm that my granddaddy owned. We're just within sight of the USEC plant now. And I remember my first memory is being disturbed over this truck that was putting furniture on this-- it was a circle drive, and there was this big truck. And I still can have this memory, this big truck putting furniture on it. And I was distressed by it. And that's my first memory.  

Sarah [00:06:17] Your first memory is stress over furniture?  

Sarah's Mema [00:06:20] I'm looking back and thinking I was bound to be stressed over why were they taking our furniture out of the house and move us to the farm.  

Sarah [00:06:28] It was your furniture.  

Sarah's Mema [00:06:29] Yeah, it was our furniture. We moved it to the farm.  

Sarah [00:06:30] I remember you telling me you remember the Lindbergh kidnaping and feeling very scared.  

Sarah's Mema [00:06:35] And Carolyn was just petrified. She just knew she was going to be kidnaped. 

Sarah [00:06:41] So you are the second of four children?  

Sarah's Mema [00:06:44] Yes. And I was 18 months younger than my older sister who became, she thought, my mother for my whole life. Told on me as a teenager 'til I finally found something on her that I blackmailed her for a while, and that worked for a while. But she always did think she was supposed to boss me around.  

Sarah [00:07:02] You're the middle of three sisters, and then there's a baby brother.  

Sarah's Mema [00:07:04] Yes, I'm nine years older than my baby brother.  

Sarah [00:07:07] And I feel like the not just the birth order, but the being a girl among these girls and then the boy really informed how you spoke to us about your childhood and how you felt about your childhood.  

Sarah's Mema [00:07:20] Absolutely. I've always felt invisible.  

Sarah [00:07:22] Because you were the middle child.  

Sarah's Mema [00:07:25] Yes. And I was born with a twisted foot. And it was not bone, it touched my ankle on the outside of my left foot. And so, the country doctor who delivered me, put me in a cast. And I was in that cast for about a month or six weeks or something. When they took it off, my mother said my little leg was so skinny she thought I would always have that that leg looking like that. And my mother had a kind of a Calvinist attitude towards the idea of the doctrine of the elect. And if you're prosperous it's because God shines on you because you're a good person, regardless how terrible you're acting.  

Sarah [00:08:02] But what always never made sense to me about that is that you are and were very beautiful. You are the beautiful child, and beauty is such a currency and a thing people notice. I tell people the story all the time that people would come up to you and Carolyn, the 18-month older sister, and would look at you and say, what a beautiful baby. And they would look at Carolyn say, what's your name?  

Sarah's Mema [00:08:22] Yeah, that's kind of the way it was.  

Sarah [00:08:24] So people saw you because you were beautiful. So why did you feel invisible?  

Sarah's Mema [00:08:29] Well, I just learned, I think, that if I stayed invisible I could get by with more. My dad kind of favored me, and I think that's because they realized a little bit about this. A middle child has a hard time standing out without acting up.  

Sarah [00:08:46] Standing out without acting up. That's so true.  

Sarah's Mema [00:08:49] We all have trouble with.  

Sarah [00:08:50] Right.  

Sarah's Mema [00:08:51] Especially now in this culture.  

Sarah [00:08:53] Yeah. No, totally. I told Griffin that the other day, I said, "Imagine how you would feel confidence-wise that there was always somebody two years older telling you are doing it wrong."  

Sarah's Mema [00:09:00] Yeah. It just creates an inferiority complex in you almost built in.  

Sarah [00:09:06] Yeah.  

Sarah's Mema [00:09:07] I couldn't keep up with Carolyn. She was always an adult pleaser which the oldest child typically is. And I certainly wasn't going to fill that role because she was already in it.  

Sarah [00:09:18] I do want to say that my Aunt Carolyn was beloved in our family.  

Sarah's Mema [00:09:21] Absolutely.  

Sarah [00:09:22] She died several years ago in her 70s of pancreatic cancer. But it's just that sibling... But did you mother Barbara your younger sister?  

Sarah's Mema [00:09:33] No. Barbara and Carolyn were buddies. They got along beautifully. Carolyn took piano lessons first, of course. And everybody took piano lessons back then. And Carolyn played the piano at church and got paid to play the piano for revivals and that kind of thing. Of course, grandmother, Allen, she was their first grandchild. She was very special to them. She'd go and stay with them and pretend that she's working in the grocery store. And they would pay her to work in a grocery store. She was 18 years old. And so she was always the shining star. And I was not keen on the fact that I was prettier than she was for many years.  

Sarah [00:10:14] But when did you realize that? Was it boys paying attention?  

Sarah's Mema [00:10:18] Probably. I wouldn't tell you that being pretty is an asset in the long run.  

Sarah [00:10:27] Tell me why.  

Sarah's Mema [00:10:28] Well you get noticed by guys too soon and they you have a lot of opportunities to date the popular boys and all that stuff and make bad choices about which one to date maybe, and who knows. Anyway, another thing that I think really changed my life without anybody making an attempt was mom's idea that Carolyn was the college bound one. I know one time she told me that I could either go to PCC, which is a community college, or to Transylvania, which was the church college, but I couldn't go to Murray where Carolyn was, and I was smart enough to figure that out. She was afraid I would embarrass Carolyn.  

Sarah [00:11:09] What do you mean she thought you would embarrass Carolyn?  

Sarah's Mema [00:11:12] Carolyn was in Murray.  

Sarah [00:11:13] But what was embarrassing about you?  

Sarah's Mema [00:11:17] I don't know. My mom thought I was a wild child. My friends were not the goody two shoes that Carolyn's friends were, but they weren't nearly that wild. No girl dared to be wild back then, really.  

Sarah [00:11:32] So I have a question before we get into your teenage years. I didn't know that about your foot and the cast.  

Sarah's Mema [00:11:39] You didn't?  

Sarah [00:11:40] No. Were you conscious of that?  

Sarah's Mema [00:11:42] No.  

Sarah [00:11:43] So it never affected you once, though?  

Sarah's Mema [00:11:45] Yes. I toed in and I still do. My left foot toes in a little if I'm tired. I never did have a pretty walk.  

Sarah [00:11:53] Okay. 

Sarah's Mema [00:11:55] Yeah. 

Sarah [00:11:57] Did somebody tell you about it or your foot just bothered you?  

Sarah's Mema [00:11:59] I'm a nerd. I had one of these old ugly brown lace up shoes, and my mom gave me dancing lessons thinking I might learn how to walk. And it's always been an issue with me.  

Sarah [00:12:08] That's interesting.  

Sarah's Mema [00:12:09] Still is.  

Sarah [00:12:10] I had no idea that you were [inaudible].  

Sarah's Mema [00:12:13] My leg is not as strong as the other one.  

Sarah [00:12:15] Okay, so I was just trying to put that piece into sort of the invisibility and feeling different. And you weren't like a big student. Carolyn had taken that role, so you weren't.  

Sarah's Mema [00:12:26] I couldn't read. I didn't learn to read. At first grade I had about five different teachers. Back then, Heath, it was a school that you started in first grade and you went through 12th in the same building. At seventh grade you moved up to the top floor. So off and on during that whole year we had lots of substitutes and they were high school girls.  

Sarah [00:12:53] Oh, wow.  

Sarah's Mema [00:12:54] Then the second grade we had this nice, sweet teacher that didn't really teach us much. I remember sitting around a table and this boy crying all the time because he didn't want to be at school, and that's about my only memory of that year. And then third grade, I got in this class where this teacher thought we should know something. Well, I have some kind of a dyslexia or something I just didn't pick up on. And I'm attention deficit.  

Sarah [00:13:15] Mom has that, too.  

Sarah's Mema [00:13:16] Many years before I was ever aware of that.  

Sarah [00:13:18] That's so interesting because I think this perception of education back then is so exacting, and the standards were so high and kids learned so much more, but you had high school girls as substitutes.  

Sarah's Mema [00:13:28] Yeah, exactly.  

Sarah [00:13:30] Okay. So you struggled in school?  

Sarah's Mema [00:13:34] I was about in the fifth grade when I started learning. I learned to read enough to enjoy it.  

Sarah [00:13:38] That's old.  

Sarah's Mema [00:13:40] And I look back, if there had been TV, I never would have become a reader.  

Sarah [00:13:44] Yeah. 

Sarah's Mema [00:13:46] But I was forced to with the boredom in Heath during summer.  

Sarah [00:13:50] Nothing else to do.  

Sarah's Mema [00:13:52] We had a lady that would bring a carload of books down to the little grocery store from the library, and I'd go down and get books.  

Sarah [00:14:00] From the public library.  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:02] Yeah. The Carnegie library.  

Sarah [00:14:04] I was going to say the old Carnegie.  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:05] It was the most fabulous place in the world.  

Sarah [00:14:07] I know, I'm so sad I never got to see it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:09] It was wonderful.  

Sarah [00:14:10] Our Carnegie library built by the Carnegie Endowment. Did it burn or they tore it down? It burnt, right? 

Sarah's Mema [00:14:15] It burnt. Well, it didn't really. It could have been fixed. But that was in that era when everybody was building modern buildings. 

Sarah [00:14:23] Okay. So you get through school. The boys are paying attention.  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:27] Actually, I was almost an honors student. I had good grades.  

Sarah [00:14:30] There we go.  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:30] School was not hard. If you carefully chose your classes, stayed out of chemistry. We didn't even have a lab. I didn't want that.  

Sarah [00:14:40] When did you meet daddy [inaudible]? Daddy [inaudible] is my grandfather, by the way.  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:44] I was my junior, probably.  

Sarah [00:14:48] Junior year. And did you start dating immediately?  

Sarah's Mema [00:14:51] No, we dated about a year. He was from Bandana. And somehow Heath girls and Bandana boys we're all buddies. We all dated Ballard County boys. That's the county on the Mississippi.  

Sarah [00:15:09] And so, did you want to go to college or you were already not interested?  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:14] I kind of did, but I was in love. I would have definitely gone to college. I think if mom had taken me to Transylvania to see it, I might have done it. Who knows?  

Sarah [00:15:28] You had a granddaughter go to Transylvania.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:30] I know.  

Sarah [00:15:31] I think that's where I heard about Transylvania.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:33] I encouraged that.  

Sarah [00:15:34] Yeah, I think you planted the seed.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:35] I did, I wanted you to go there.  

Sarah [00:15:36] Yeah, it worked.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:38] We like to use our children/ grandchildren to [crosstalk] of our lives.  

Sarah [00:15:42] It works better if your grandmother tells you? If mother had told me, I probably wouldn't have gone. Okay, you're in love.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:49] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:15:50] You're how old? 16.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:51] Seventeen, I think.  

Sarah [00:15:52] Seventeen. And you're starting to date.  

Sarah's Mema [00:15:57] Got engaged on my birthday, February the 20th. I'm in senior year.  

Sarah [00:16:00] Senior year of high school. And he was about to be drafted for Korea.  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:06] Korea.  

Sarah [00:16:07] Were they drafting people then?  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:08] Yeah, absolutely.  

Sarah [00:16:09] Dang! How do I miss that?  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:11] Like crazy.  

Sarah [00:16:12] Because Jo went, aunt Carolyn's husband.  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:16] He was drafted, I'm sure.  

Sarah [00:16:18] So then did you immediately get married? Like, how long were you engaged?  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:23] From February till June.  

Sarah [00:16:25] Not very long.  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:26] We got married.  

Sarah [00:16:27] You got married.  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:28] But that was so common. I mean, there was three or four girls that were planning their wedding during our senior year.  

Sarah [00:16:32] The MRS degree was what you got in high school. 

Sarah's Mema [00:16:36] My husband was the first shot. We went to Mississippi. He didn't want to have to get a blood test. Back then you had to get blood tested.  

Sarah [00:16:41] Oh, yeah. So you went to Mississippi? Did you have a wedding? Like a traditional wedding?  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:47] We went to preacher. No. 

Sarah [00:16:49] No, because I've never seen pictures of any--  

Sarah's Mema [00:16:51] My sister Carolyn was the first person that I remember having a church wedding.  

Sarah [00:16:56] Her wedding was so pretty. It's very like picture perfect of 50s wedding.  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:00] Very rare. I mean, she was the first one. Well, she went to college and got these big ideas, too. 

Sarah [00:17:07] So you get married at 18 years old,  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:11] And at 20 I had Lisa.  

Sarah [00:17:12] At 20 you had mom. Baus [sp] a year later, or even a little less.  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:17] Fourteen months.  

Sarah [00:17:18] Fourteen months later. Greg is, what, two years late?  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:21] Two years later.  

Sarah [00:17:22] And Lana [sp] is how many years after that?  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:26] Three and a half.  

Sarah [00:17:27] Three and a half.  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:27] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:17:28] So what was it like having all tiny kids?  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:31] I can hardly remember.  

Sarah [00:17:33] I know. You must have been--  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:34] Plus no money. When Greg was a baby, he decided we were going to be farmers.  

Sarah [00:17:39] What were you till that point?  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:40] Pipefitter. He was he was a pipefitter.  

Sarah [00:17:41] Yeah, he was a pipefitter.  

Sarah's Mema [00:17:42] He was doing his apprenticeship as a pipefitter. And all of a sudden he said, I found a farm I want to buy. I said, "What, a farm? Where?"  

Sarah [00:17:51] So you had all these kids, you buy the farm before Lana is born. And that's the farm I know with the pool.  

Sarah's Mema [00:18:00] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:18:01] And so, how long had you been married when Lana was born?  

Sarah's Mema [00:18:04] Well, she was born in '62, we married in '54 or so. Eight years.  

Sarah [00:18:11] Well, I remember one time you telling me, like, I don't know how you do all this with these little kids. We would go to music classes and we'd go to Library Story hour and all this stuff. And I said, "Well, I have a dishwasher and a washing machine and an automatic vacuum." I just feel like probably you don't remember because so much of what you were doing was just monotonous chores that required a lot of labor.  

Sarah's Mema [00:18:32] Which I don't do well. Attention deficit people do not do monotonous jobs.  

Sarah [00:18:38] And you had to be cooking all the time.  

Sarah's Mema [00:18:39] And I had to still multitask all the time, all the time, all the time. I still try to do it, but my 88-year-old brain is not is not as adept as it was then. Adept.  

Sarah [00:18:50] Yeah. So you just were cooking and cleaning.  

Sarah's Mema [00:18:52] Cooking and cleaning and taking care of children and running them here and running them there. And I couldn't wait for Lisa to get a driver's license so she could take on some of that. And then she was such a terrible driver I wouldn't let her take my children. But after the year that my mother graduated from college--  

Sarah [00:19:09] Because when did grandmother decide to go to college?  

Sarah's Mema [00:19:12] When she decided that Jimmy and Daddy were adult enough to take care of themselves, fix their own breakfast.  

Sarah [00:19:20] I mean, that's cool. That's pretty out of the ordinary.  

Sarah's Mema [00:19:23] I tell you what, it was the year I had my first baby.  

Sarah [00:19:26] So you had your first baby.  

Sarah's Mema [00:19:28] Mom went to college.  

Sarah [00:19:28] And how old was Jimmy, her youngest child?  

Sarah's Mema [00:19:31] I had my first baby when I was 20, so he was 11.  

Sarah [00:19:36] Eleven. I mean, that's pretty out of the ordinary back then.  

Sarah's Mema [00:19:38] Yeah, she was going to go to college. She ran out and got married. And so, that was always in her future to go to college. And that's when she finally got around to it. She graduated from college at 45. Went straight through four years. The summer she graduated, she came to my house at the farm and brought a baby sitter who lived in a little apartment behind their house and took me to college at Murray. I loved it. I took an art class [crosstalk].  

Sarah [00:20:06] Wait, how old were your kids when you did this?  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:08] Well, Greg was a baby.  

Sarah [00:20:10] And she brought a baby sitter and took you to college. And how old were you?  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:14] Well, it was '70. I was born in '36.  

Sarah [00:20:18] I won't do math on this.  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:19] I was 25 because I graduated at 35. It took me 10 years to get through college.  

Sarah [00:20:24] Because I was the first generation to just go out of high school.  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:27] Yeah, I remember grandad telling you to do that.  

Sarah [00:20:30] Yes, grandmother did it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:32] And I did it. Your mother went for a while and majored in sorority and then went back and finished.  

Sarah [00:20:37] And [inaudible] dropped out and then went back. And I was the only one that went through [inaudible]. Okay, so you start when you're 25. I definitely thought you were older. You started when you were 25 and Greg was a baby going to classes with grandmother. But during the day or in the evening?  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:52] During the day every day at summer school. Five days a week.  

Sarah [00:20:55] Oh, summer school. Okay.  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:56] Six weeks probably.  

Sarah [00:20:58] So you just did it during the summer?  

Sarah's Mema [00:20:59] Yeah, this and that summer. And then I didn't do it again until I had Lana and I started going to PCC, which was convenient.  

Sarah [00:21:08] Yeah.  

Sarah's Mema [00:21:09] And I would just go three days a week.  

Sarah [00:21:12] Wow. That's crazy. I mean, they were so little and you were doing this. But you loved it. You wanted more. 

Sarah's Mema [00:21:18]  I loved school. Yeah.  

Sarah [00:21:19] Who doesn't love school. I love school. 

Sarah's Mema [00:21:21] College is so wonderful for adults.  

Sarah [00:21:24] Yeah, it is wasted by the younger [crosstalk].  

Sarah's Mema [00:21:25] You really appreciate it. I used to be so upset with these kids that would come in there half asleep and not pay attention; I think, your parents are paying for this?  

Sarah [00:21:34] Yeah. Okay, so you start taking classes, you have Lana. So you have little kids and you're just taking one or two classes at a time basically the summer. Did you take any during school year or mostly during the summer?  

Sarah's Mema [00:21:46] It's more mainly than the school year. They were in school by then- the three other ones. And I would take her to a friend's who babysat with her or took her to a daycare for a while, and she didn't like it because they told her what she had to have for lunch. And I realize I'd been saying, what do you want for lunch today? So she thought she'd first order lunch.  

Sarah [00:22:10] What did daddy [inaudible] think about all this?  

Sarah's Mema [00:22:12] Well, he'd already agreed that I could go to college if we would go ahead and get married. That was part of the marriage agreement between the two of us. He had to stomach it. He didn't like it.  

Sarah [00:22:22] He didn't like it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:22:24] No, he told me one time he thought as soon as I got my degree, I would leave.  

Sarah [00:22:27] Is that what happened?  

Sarah's Mema [00:22:28] No, I had four children. A teacher salary would not support four children.  

Sarah [00:22:33] No. When did you decide when you were taking these classes to become a teacher?  

Sarah's Mema [00:22:39] It pretty much was decided for me. You get so much in your basics in history and English. So being a teacher made sense for a woman with that many children.  

Sarah [00:22:53] Yeah. And Carolyn was a teacher. 

Sarah's Mema [00:22:55] Carolyn was a teacher and my grandmother had been a teacher and my aunts were all teachers. And so, it's this kind of a family business. 

Sarah [00:23:03] Cards and teaching.  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:04] And so, History and English just was the easiest major that I could-- I have a double major in History and English.  

Sarah [00:23:13] Okay. So you get the degree finally as you say 70?  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:17] Yeah and I went to work at Ballard.  

Sarah [00:23:18] So you start working. How old was everybody when you started working?  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:21] 1970...  

Sarah [00:23:24] I mean, you didn't know this was going to be a math test.  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:25] No, and I don't like math. Lisa was about 14.  

Sarah [00:23:30] Okay. So older.  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:32] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:23:33] But that means Lana was like, what, four?  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:35] They were all in school.  

Sarah [00:23:36] Okay, so everybody's in school, and you're teaching at Ballard. They're at school at Heath. And then you started teaching English.  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:44] I taught English at first. Yeah. Junior English.  

Sarah [00:23:47] This is the fun overlap, which is when you teach my father at Ballard.  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:51] Yeah. That's when I met John.  

Sarah [00:23:52] His favorite teacher still to this day. How long did you teach English?  

Sarah's Mema [00:23:57] Four years, probably.  

Sarah [00:23:58] Then you taught...  

Sarah's Mema [00:24:00] I taught history after that. Junior history.  

Sarah [00:24:01] Okay, so you taught for how many years?  

Sarah's Mema [00:24:05] Seven.  

Sarah [00:24:05] And then you became the guidance counselor. Why did you do that?  

Sarah's Mema [00:24:08] I was encouraged to get my masters. You had to get a master's in 10 years to keep your certification in Kentucky. We used to have really high standards, higher than almost any state. And of course, you got a big pay raise. And then when you became a counselor, you had so many years to get another certificate. So I have three certificates. Probably 220 college hours. I thought about getting a doctorate at one point, and then I thought you would just be doing that to please your mother. But I didn't do it. I was going to have to go SIU and all that stuff. But I like counseling a lot.  

Sarah [00:24:49] And so you decided to become a guidance counselor. And how long were you the guidance counselor?  

Sarah's Mema [00:24:52] About until I retired in '96.  

Sarah [00:24:54] So, 20 something years?  

Sarah's Mema [00:24:56] I don't know.  

Sarah [00:24:57] A little less?  

Sarah's Mema [00:24:57] Nineteen, I guess.  

Sarah [00:24:58] Wow. Did you like counseling better than teaching?  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:02] Yes, I felt like I was better at it.  

Sarah [00:25:05] Why?  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:07] I'm a good listener and I'm empathetic and I hate doing discipline. I hate telling somebody who knows how to act how they're supposed to act. To me it's kind of an insult.  

Sarah [00:25:22] That's hilarious. I'm an Enneagram one and I love to tell people how to act.  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:26] I don't.  

Sarah [00:25:26] It's my favorite thing. Well you're an Enneagram nine and you don't like conflict.  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:30] No. I hate conflict.  

Sarah [00:25:32] So would you say as you were the counselor you were fulfilled professionally in your career?  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:38] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:25:38] Gave you purpose and you really liked it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:40] Yeah, and I work 20 years after I retired.  

Sarah [00:25:42] You told me the other night that you finally retired at 80.  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:44] I did.  

Sarah [00:25:45] We're going to get to that. I don't want to jump ahead.  

Sarah's Mema [00:25:46] Okay.  

Sarah [00:25:48] Okay. So you were fulfilled professionally and you had these four kids. What was going on personally? That's my question. How was your personal life when you were teaching?  

Sarah's Mema [00:26:00] Iffy. Budd [sp] is not a bad person, but we are so different. So different. Brought up very different. His mother died when he was seven. I think he had a lot of deep-seated anger. I know he did. Quick temper. Very impatient. He was a good father, but he did work harder than any man I ever knew.  

Sarah [00:26:23] Well, he's 90 and he still works hard.  

Sarah's Mema [00:26:25] He tries hard to still work and he's 90. But he's very, very restless and wired all the time. And I'm just the opposite. And he had no respect for women. He told me after we divorced that he thought all women were lame.  

Sarah [00:26:43] All women were lame.  

Sarah's Mema [00:26:46] He couldn't trust them. They didn't have any sense. That's how he start to think of women.  

Sarah [00:26:53] He couldn't trust them and they didn't have any sense.  

Sarah's Mema [00:26:56] That's pretty much male attitude back then.  

Sarah [00:26:58] But that's so crazy to me that he felt that way and was married to you. Because you do have sense.  

Sarah's Mema [00:27:04] Yeah, he didn't like that either. He really would rather I didn't have any sense.  

Sarah [00:27:10] Right. It disrupted his idea and he didn't like that.  

Sarah's Mema [00:27:12] Yeah, right.  

Sarah [00:27:14] So what's interesting to me, do you feel like he's very different from granddaddy, your father? Because they say women marry their fathers, and I feel like they're different.  

Sarah's Mema [00:27:21] Absolutely different.  

Sarah [00:27:23] Why didn't you meet the psychological expectations?  

Sarah's Mema [00:27:25] I don't know. I didn't meet those expectations in many ways. No. He's not at all like my father. My dad's real easygoing. I had a wreck one time and came home. I was on a date, car turned over and I hit my head. One side and then the other. I still have a knot right here; and hit here and here.  

Sarah [00:27:44] Now before seatbelts?  

Sarah's Mema [00:27:45] Oh, gosh. Yes. And some people brought me home and I went and I said, "I had a wreck. The car turned over. And he said, "Where you hurt?" And I said, "I hit my head. I'm okay." "Well, go to bed. We'll check in the morning."  

Sarah [00:28:02] Oh my gosh. Yeah, I can't imagine him ever being quick tempered.  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:07] No.  

Sarah [00:28:08] He was like a deep pool of water.  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:12] Absolutely. Yeah.  

Sarah [00:28:14] I feel like grandmother was more the busybody than he was.  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:17] Yeah. She had a temper, but she didn't show it.  

Sarah [00:28:19] I never saw it. No, never. I was very lucky-- for the audience's purposes-- to have a close relationship with my great grandparents. And they lived for most of my childhood. They didn't die until I was in my 20s.  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:32] Right.  

Sarah [00:28:33] So why then did you marry daddy Budd?  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:38] Back then if you had sex, you better get married. It's a total and absolute disgrace if you had a baby too soon.  

Sarah [00:28:45] Okay. So you just felt like I love him, everybody else is getting married, we better lock this up in case I get pregnant. But you didn't get pregnant. You didn't pregnant until two years after you got married.  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:56] I actually did have a miscarriage.  

Sarah [00:28:58] You had a miscarriage before mom.  

Sarah's Mema [00:28:59] I got married in June and I had a miscarriage at Christmas.  

Sarah [00:29:01] What was that like back then. Did anybody tell you; did anybody talk to you?  

Sarah's Mema [00:29:03] About the miscarriage? The doctor told me he couldn't tell whether it was a girl or boy because the fetus was kind of not there. And he told me that was very normal. I had a wonderful country doctor and he delivered all my children. First two breech.  

Sarah [00:29:21] With twilight sleep.  

Sarah's Mema [00:29:23] I don't what it was. It didn't put me to sleep. I still remember those births. And he just said you're fine and you'll be okay. And almost every woman if she's having children, she'll have a miscarriage at some point. Now they call it a spontaneous abortion. And poor women are having to go through hell right now.  

Sarah [00:29:44] I know.  

[00:29:44] Music Interlude.  

Sarah [00:29:54] So your personal life, your marriage is not great. Your professional life is. Your kids are growing up.  

Sarah's Mema [00:30:00] Budd didn't like that either.  

Sarah [00:30:01] He didn't like that you were professional.  

Sarah's Mema [00:30:02] That I was successful.  

Sarah [00:30:06] Why did he feel threatened when he is so capable?  

Sarah's Mema [00:30:08] He was threatened.  

Sarah [00:30:10] But I wonder why because he doesn't strike me as insecure.  

Sarah's Mema [00:30:13] He didn't even come close to getting through high school. He never went to school. And if he did, he left half way through the day. He was supposed to have been in junior when he dropped out. And he decided he was going to finish, and when he got his transcripts, he had seven or eight credits. School was the last thing on his mind.  

Sarah [00:30:34] But that's so interesting to me because it's not like he wasn't capable.  

Sarah's Mema [00:30:37] No. His daddy let him quit school.  

Sarah [00:30:41] So you think that became a source of insecurities, is that you had all this education.  

Sarah's Mema [00:30:45] Sure.  

Sarah [00:30:46] That's interesting though, because again, grandmother and granddaddy, same situation. She gets education. Did he drop out or did he graduate? 

Sarah's Mema [00:30:54] They ran off and got married, and the boys at his school teased him so bad that he dropped out of high school a month before graduation. And his daddy let him do that.  

Sarah [00:31:04] Because he was married. They were teasing because he was married?  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:06] They were teasing him because they tried to keep it a secret and it was a big scandal.  

Sarah [00:31:10] Yeah, because they did at homecoming, right? They left at homecoming. I knew that.  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:13] They left in a ball game that was homecoming baseball game. Yeah. Went over on a ferry in a metropolis.  

Sarah [00:31:18] And tried to keep it a secret.  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:19] And tried to keep it a secret with two people with them. Fat chance.  

Sarah [00:31:24] Yeah.  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:25] Teenagers.  

Sarah [00:31:26] So when do you remember the first time thinking, I don't want to be in this marriage anymore?.  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:34] I didn't let myself think about it much.  

Sarah [00:31:38] For years.  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:39] A long time. It was like, I'm in this 'til my children are grown.  

Sarah [00:31:44] So that's when you started thinking about it, is when they were grown?  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:47] No, I came close several times.  

Sarah [00:31:49] To leaving, even when they're little?  

Sarah's Mema [00:31:51] Yeah, but if there's any way you can avoid it. And it's not like he hit me or was ugly to me verbally or anything like that. He just questioned everything. Why did you stay in town so long? You mean you were shopping in there and you didn't buy anything, which to him was so foreign? He bought everything you saw always. Just insulted by that. But not trust me. He didn't want me having, like, my friends. He wanted to control me. He was very controlling-- trying to be. Because when I got a job, he's thought I'd be gone. But he didn't change his behavior. He said he could.  

Sarah [00:32:32] Said he couldn't change his behavior.  

Sarah's Mema [00:32:34] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:32:34] Did y'all ever go-- I mean, there wasn't, like, marriage counseling or anything like that.  

Sarah's Mema [00:32:37] Yeah, we tried it twice.  

Sarah [00:32:38] You did? When did you go to marriage counseling?  

Sarah's Mema [00:32:40] I left three times.  

Sarah [00:32:42] When was the first time you left?  

Sarah's Mema [00:32:43] The first time I left, we tried marriage counselor. All of a sudden, he wants to fix it. He's Mr. Perfect. He's learned his lesson. Things are going to be different. Suckered me back in twice.  

Sarah [00:32:52] How old were you?  

Sarah's Mema [00:32:54] I was 45 when I got a divorce.  

Sarah [00:32:56] Was it in your 40s?  

Sarah's Mema [00:32:57] 42/43.  

Sarah [00:32:59] So it was all close in time towards the end?  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:00] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:33:01] You left and you got marriage counseling..  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:03] I went back. And then the last time he suckered me back was 'til I'd buy that piece of property that broke us both. 

Sarah [00:33:10] Do you think that's why?  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:11] Oh, yeah.  

Sarah [00:33:13] That's tough.  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:15] Plus, I did a lot of work there. I bought the groceries and my money went into the operation just like his did.  

Sarah [00:33:23] Do you think, though, that it was more than that? Do you think it was just transactional?  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:27]  I think he still loves me and I still love him. I just wouldn't live with him for a million dollars a day.  

Sarah [00:33:32] That's what I think, too.  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:34] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:33:34] Because y'all still we're kind of like-- it's not like you, like, were angry, never spoke again. That was never the situation.  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:40] No. Well for a while, but no. 

Sarah [00:33:41] My mom says that. She says when you finally got divorced, she thought she'd never talk to her brothers again. So you finally got divorced and you left when you were 45 years old and you were like, I'm out.  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:52] And my dad wouldn't stick afterwards.  

Sarah [00:33:55] So Lana was how old?  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:57] She'd finished high school.  

Sarah [00:33:58] So she's out of high school.  

Sarah's Mema [00:33:59] That was the magic number. To get her out through high school.  

Sarah [00:34:02] And then you're like, I'm out. Do you regret not leaving sooner?  

Sarah's Mema [00:34:05] No.  

Sarah [00:34:06] You're glad you stayed. That they were grown.  

Sarah's Mema [00:34:09] Yeah. My children were used to a high standard of living, much higher than most the people around us. I mean, we were spending money we didn't really have and in a lot of debt and all that, but we still lived high. 

Sarah [00:34:19] Yeah.  

Sarah's Mema [00:34:20] And so they were used to a lot. And I thought, in their high school years I can't move them into a house somewhere and try to make a living. And he would always say things like, well, if you leave, you'll never get a dime from me. I'll just get in the car and leave. And I believed him basically because he probably would have.  

Sarah [00:34:38] So she graduates from high school. You're 45 years old and you're like, this is it. I'm done.  

Sarah's Mema [00:34:43] I just couldn't do it. I was just tired. I would come up my driveway, and we had a long driveway, and when I turned in, I could just feel the weight of the world.  

Sarah [00:34:53] That's what mom said to me one time.  

Sarah's Mema [00:34:53] I could hardly get out of the car.  

Sarah [00:34:55] Yeah. She said, "You don't know what it's like to come home and wish their car is not in the driveway."  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:00] Just going in the house. It's the whole burden of all of that stuff.  

Sarah [00:35:06] Just years. Because how long had you been married at this point?  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:09] We were married 27.  

Sarah [00:35:12] Was it always a burden?  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:15] It's always hard work. I was the adult, basically.  

Sarah [00:35:19] You were always the bad guy.  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:20] I was the bad guy.  

Sarah [00:35:23] That's exhausting.  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:24] It is exhausting. Four kids is exhausting.  

Sarah [00:35:30] Three kids is exhausted.  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:32] Yeah. I tried to tell you that.  

Sarah [00:35:34] It's so interesting to me as your granddaughter because my perception of you is so different. So, to put this in the timeline, how old were you when I was born?  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:47] But you were born in '81.  

Sarah [00:35:48] And you left right around this divorce.  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:52] I was 45.  

Sarah [00:35:52] So, yeah, you got divorced right before I was born, right?  

Sarah's Mema [00:35:57] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:35:58] You're welcome for bringing all that sunshine into your life during a difficult moment.  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:02] Thank you for that.  

Sarah [00:36:03] First of all, did you watch Mom and Dad and think, oh, no.  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:10] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:36:11] That she was doing the same thing. Because, I mean, the stories are very similar. The stories are very similar. Everybody was getting married. My friends were getting married.  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:22] She was just a little older. That's the only difference.  

Sarah [00:36:24] A little older, not much. And then I felt like I was the bad guy. I felt like I was the adult. Like, it's just a very similar story. Because they got divorced not very close in time to when you guys did, right?  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:38] Let's see. You were born in '81. They got divorced in about '85.  

Sarah [00:36:42] Yeah, I was like three. 

Sarah's Mema [00:36:43] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:36:44] So and you got divorced what year?  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:46] '81.  

Sarah [00:36:46] So the year that I was born.  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:48] Yeah, that's when I left. And we got a divorce. We didn't have an agreement. We got a legal separation.  

Sarah [00:36:54] Was it ugly?  

Sarah's Mema [00:36:58] Yes. Oh, yes. Lord, yes. Ugly.  

Sarah [00:37:02] Because he still didn't want you to go.  

Sarah's Mema [00:37:04] No. I was his property.  

Sarah [00:37:07] And he didn't want to share.  

Sarah's Mema [00:37:09] No, it was his. I was trying to take his money which he didn't have at that point, and he just didn't know it yet. It was just a matter of time.  

Sarah [00:37:19] So when did you finally reach an agreement?  

Sarah's Mema [00:37:23] Maybe two years.  

Sarah [00:37:24] And it was bitter and you were not talking.  

Sarah's Mema [00:37:27] Right. And there was nothing left. I paid my lawyer on time. I bought a car. The thing that caused me to leave the last time, I went out to get in the car to go to work one morning and my car was gone. And Budd had a pickup truck sitting there with no keys in it. And I called Bobby Allen [sp], who worked at Ballard at the time, and she came and got me and took me to work with her and took me to Paducah afterward. And I bought a car, took a car off the car lot that I bought finally. Still love it. It was a little, Buick Regal. It was navy and tan and it was just gorgeous. And I brought it home. We were not sleeping in the same bedroom, and he said, "I won't do that again." I said, "No, you won't." But he said, I'll let you. Because my cars were always put in his name. Everything was. All the vehicles. Because that's the way daddy thought, you know... And we were buying them from [inaudible] sales, of course. Being a loyal family. Well, he did buy a new car one time, came home and told me about it. But anyway, I used my car. He was mad, but he didn't ask me about [crosstalk].  

Sarah [00:38:41] So was this one in your name?  

Sarah's Mema [00:38:43] No, they never were. The last one I bought was because I put it in my name. 

Sarah [00:38:47] That last one was in your name. 

Sarah's Mema [00:38:49] It was in my name And also rent mortgage was in my name too. So I moved to Paducah and rented an apartment. And I was making apartment payments and car payments and lawyer payments. But I still had a real good time.  

Sarah [00:39:02] What was that like when you were free?  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:06] It was wonderful.  

Sarah [00:39:07] You were just living your best life. Your kids were gone.  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:12] Well, pretty much.  

Sarah [00:39:12] Pretty much.  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:14] Lana was still. She had a room there. I had a two-bedroom apartment [inaudible] which was the place to live at that point.  

Sarah [00:39:19] And everybody was just-- again, it's the 80s, everybody's living large.  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:23] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:39:24] Did you feel like you were in college again?  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:28] I just felt like I was free.  

Sarah [00:39:31] You just felt free.  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:32] Free at last, thank God almighty.  

Sarah [00:39:35] That was Stacey days [inaudible]. 

Sarah's Mema [00:39:37] That was the Stacey's days, the Jeremy Days.  

Sarah [00:39:41] Did you go out partying all night? What did you?  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:43] No. I came in on time. I went to school. I mean, I always made school. It's one thing we do in our family, we go to school on time.  

Sarah [00:39:51] So you rent this apartment, you're free at last. But the divorce hurts because you have this mortgage.  

Sarah's Mema [00:39:58] And animosity. And Greg got mad and wouldn't talk to me for a long time. And ironically, he got a divorce after 27 years also. But anyway, that's another story.  

Sarah [00:40:08] Well, I remember you telling me that you looked at Greg once and said, "I have three other children, but I'm the only mother you'll ever have."  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:13] Yeah, he remembers that, too.  

Sarah [00:40:14] That's an impactful thing to say.  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:17] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:40:18] But it's true.  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:18] It is true.  

Sarah [00:40:20] So how long did the boys not talk to you? Beau and Greg.  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:22] Beau [sp] talked to me. It's Greg.  

Sarah [00:40:23] It was Greg.  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:25] Greg didn't like change. He said to me one time, "Mom, you've lived with him this long. Why are you going to leave now?" And I said, "Tomorrow's a new day for me just like it is for you, Greg."  

Sarah [00:40:34] Were you surprised? Like, did you have this story in your head like they're grown and I'm free. Did it surprise you how much they struggled with it or did you anticipate that [crosstalk]?  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:44] I had no idea that it would be so hard for them.  

Sarah [00:40:46] Okay.  

Sarah's Mema [00:40:47] I thought I was doing them a big favor by leaving when I did, instead of when they were little. And I still think I did. I mean, they had a lot different life.  

Sarah [00:40:54] Yeah. I mean, that's definitely a difference between you and mom. Like, I'm saving you. I'm not waiting until you're grown.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:01] Right. Yeah.  

Sarah [00:41:02] Which I appreciate it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:03] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:41:05] It doesn't matter when your parents get divorced. And it's funny, at one time I had a dream that Mom and Ron, my stepfather, got divorced. And the dream was what I would classify as a nightmare, because it's just never occurred to me. And I thought, oh, this is what people feel. This is how it feels.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:18] You didn't know any different. 

Sarah [00:41:20] I'm a child of divorce sort of. I have no conscious memory [crosstalk]. 

Sarah's Mema [00:41:22] And that's pretty much the way they say that little kids do not know any different and that they can handle it okay as long as they don't say fighting and that stuff. And your dad was a wonderful, absentee dad.  

Sarah [00:41:34] He really was.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:34] He was.  

Sarah [00:41:35] I mean, he's not anymore. Now he lives here. So that's interesting. So you finally leave, your free, but your kids are mad.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:44] Well, one of them is.  

Sarah [00:41:45] One of them is mad. Then the love of your life, me, obviously is born.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:50] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:41:52] What did you think? That's very young to become a grandmother.  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:55] Yeah, it was.  

Sarah [00:41:56] What did you think?  

Sarah's Mema [00:41:58] It's exciting to have a baby. To have one in the family. It had been a while.  

Sarah [00:42:02] It had been a while because [crosstalk].  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:04] Everybody was excited.  

Sarah [00:42:04] Yeah, I was the eldest.  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:08] Everybody was excited about the baby.  

Sarah [00:42:11] Especially a redhead.  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:12] No matter what people get excited about a baby.  

Sarah [00:42:13] That's true. Babies are great. Babies are universally great. That's very true.  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:16] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:42:18] But then when did you move to Buckner? Because I didn't know this, but you say grandmother and grandad bought you that house.  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:24] I moved to Buckner in a year. I was at [inaudible] year. Mom said, "You need to find a house because you can make house payment for what you're paying rent." They bought the house. They gave me $10,000 to renovate. It was a total disaster. A big pretty house, way too big.  

Sarah [00:42:42] It was the best house, though.  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:43] We did a lot of work on it. Yeah, it was beautiful.  

Sarah [00:42:45] I love that house. This house is across the street from my children's elementary school.  

Sarah's Mema [00:42:48] Yeah, so we worked hard and got it together, and they set up a deal where I was paying them $300, which was what my rent was-- maybe $50 more. I was paying them, $300 a month. They were paying $5,000 a year on to the mortgage. You add that up, it's more than just what they were doing. Yeah, they did a lot. And they, of course, made the downpayment-- well, there wasn't any down downpayment, they just got the mortgage. And that's how we did that. And then I sold it after about five years. It was starting to fill up with my kids stuff because they were in that transition thing where they were moving and living in apartments and moving somewhere else. And it was filling up, and I was filling it up and it had about six zillion windows, little panes and storm windows I couldn't handle. And it was just way too much house.  

Sarah [00:43:40] So where do you move after that?  

Sarah's Mema [00:43:41] So I sold it and moved to [inaudible] and bought a house on Springdale Circle.  

Sarah [00:43:45] Springdale Circle.  

Sarah's Mema [00:43:46] Which was up the street from where [inaudible].  

Sarah [00:43:47] The golden era.  

Sarah's Mema [00:43:49] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:43:50] And you lived there for a long time.  

[00:43:52] Twenty years. So you lived two, three doors up from us? Basically my entire childhood. I rode with you and mother. You dropped me off to school and went to Ballard.  

Sarah's Mema [00:44:07] Yeah, those were good years.  

Sarah [00:44:08] They were good years. You were very, very present in my life growing all the time. And that's what's so interesting to me, because I watched a reel this morning where it was like when I was growing up, my mother, during the summer, would be like, "You're hungry. Eat an apple." I don't want an apple. Then you're not that hungry. And then it's like the same child goes and asks the grandmother, and she's like, what can I get you? And she pulls out a menu of snacks and she's like, do you want me to make you a cake? What kind of frosting would you like? And so, it's so interesting to hear you describe yourself, because that was not what it was like to have you as a grandmother. Obviously, you did not feel invisible. You felt larger than life. You were this single woman. You were traveling all the time. Because there was a second marriage in there that we have not talked to about.  

Sarah's Mema [00:44:51] We're not really going to talk about it.  

Sarah [00:44:51] Because it wasn't very long. How long were you married for?  

Sarah's Mema [00:44:53] Four months.  

Sarah [00:44:54] Barely worth a mention. And so, you were, like, traveling. You were always out with your friends.  

Sarah's Mema [00:45:01] I had a great time. I still have a great time.  

Sarah [00:45:05] Everything I did was perfect. There was never any criticism. 

Sarah's Mema [00:45:07] If it wasn't my darn body just going through hell.  

Sarah [00:45:10] You do live out.  

Sarah's Mema [00:45:11] I'd have a great time.  

Sarah [00:45:12] Yeah. You go out.  

Sarah's Mema [00:45:13] I still do. In spite of the fact my body does not want me to do all this.  

Sarah [00:45:16] Okay, so that's the halfway point, right? You have these first 40 years; you have the second 40 years. But I think in so many ways it still feels like that first 40 years defines you, even though you've lived the second 40. Do you feel that way?  

Sarah's Mema [00:45:28] Absolutely. Of course, it does.  

Sarah [00:45:31] The years you were growing up and having kids and all that and being married, even though that was so long ago, still defines a lot of how you think about yourself.  

Sarah's Mema [00:45:38] Yeah, sure.  

Sarah [00:45:39] That's interesting.  

Sarah's Mema [00:45:40] I think the first few years of your life would define how you're going to think about yourself before even you're old enough to reason. Scary. 

Sarah [00:45:48] I feel a lot of change, though. I feel like a very different person already, just these few years into my 40s. And I can see the differences. I don't feel as similar to myself like as a little girl. I don't think about myself as a little girl a lot. I don't remember things and think that they defined me and how I see things.  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:10] I didn't do any of that until probably in the last five years.  

Sarah [00:46:13] Where you really started thinking about it?  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:15] Covid did a number on me. I guess it did a number on everybody. Yeah, I spent a lot of time analyzing.  

Sarah [00:46:21] Because I think we have a lot of forward momentum. Did Covid finally force you to stop and think about this is how old I am.  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:26] I learned how to be at home during Covid.  

Sarah [00:46:28] Wow.  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:29] I stayed on the move.  

Sarah [00:46:30] You did. You're very busy. 

Sarah's Mema [00:46:32] I didn't want to be at home? 

Sarah [00:46:33] We have trouble tracking you down.  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:34] I liked my house and all that stuff, but I need to be somewhere. I was missing something all the time..  

Sarah [00:46:38] We are a paradox in our family. We love houses. My favorite thing you told me grandmother said when she was older, she was like 80, and she said, I wish I could just do one more house.  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:46] She's probably 85. She said that.  

Sarah [00:46:47] I love it. We've had to talk you out of buying a house a couple time.  

Sarah's Mema [00:46:51] I went through that yesterday.  

Sarah [00:46:53] Yesterday [inaudible]. Well, I could just buy one house. 

Sarah's Mema [00:46:56] And this is what's so ironic about yesterday. I started out yesterday. Okay, you are going to simplify your life. You've been telling yourself that for ten years now. You're going to get rid of this stuff that requires your time and your effort that you're not getting that much out of. Like some of these plants you got here. You're going to do this, and you're going to get that garage straight out. That's been a goal ever since I moved into this little peanut-sized house. And you're going to like this house, and you're going to appreciate what you've got, and you're going to quit thinking all the time about moving. And my friend and I went down and talked to your husband yesterday. I've become, by default, sort of the president of the HOA of these 30 townhouses where I live. And the girl who's the treasurer and I went down and we're trying to get things in order that had been left in a mess since it was reorganized and reorganized and split and added and all this stuff. It's crazy. It's a crazy mess. And we were trying to straighten it all out-- mainly she is. Anyway, we went down to his office yesterday. I had already made these speeches to my head about how I was going to downsize. I wasn't going to worry about that [inaudible] patio anymore. I was not going to worry about--  

Sarah [00:48:07] You do worry. You are a fretter.  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:08] And I didn't used to be like that at all.  

Sarah [00:48:10] I don't remember [crosstalk].  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:12] I didn't have any time to fret. But that's what happens to you when you're home a lot. You live in your head all the time.  

Sarah [00:48:17] Yeah. Okay.  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:18] I've become so self-centered, which is terrible. I never did like self-centered people. So, moving is too much.  

Sarah [00:48:28] What do you think about last decade, being in your 80s, what's it like?  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:35] Basically, Donald Trump's ruined it.  

Sarah [00:48:37] Oh, no, don't let Donald Trump ruin your 80s.  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:40] He's just absolutely...  

Sarah [00:48:42] He wears you out I know.  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:44] Well, I'm scared for us.  

Sarah [00:48:46] Yeah, I hear that a lot from you. I do worry you have too much cable news on in the background, which is [crosstalk].  

Sarah's Mema [00:48:52] I'm a history major. I have felt hostile toward the German people. And I know you did, too. We discussed it because they were so stupid to let Hitler take over. And we are following in their footsteps.  

Sarah [00:49:05] But the history always makes me feel better. History doesn't make me feel worse. History makes me feel better. I can see the patterns, yes. But the good patterns are there too. And I think that we do ultimately make some level of progress, even if it's spotting the pattern sooner.  

Sarah's Mema [00:49:22] The thing that really upsets me about the whole deal is so many of my people, and I know many, many people and I had access to their test scores and I know they've got more sense than that, and they go for that craziness.  

Sarah [00:49:36] Well, because it's about emotion, not about love.  

Sarah's Mema [00:49:38] And he was on there this morning doing all this thing about how awful the economy was and how terrible and millions of people were coming over the border. And he stood up there and told those lies with such ease and they believe him. He's so dangerous.  

Sarah [00:49:59] You do have a massive network of people. You have lots of friends, you know lots of people. When I would knock on doors running for office--  

Sarah's Mema [00:50:06] Even in Paducah.  

Sarah [00:50:07] I would just say I'm Betty's Skidmore's granddaughter and people perk up. Knowing all these people and feeling all these people around you and watching them as you get older, doesn't it make you ultimately hopeful, though? Ultimately, at the end of the day, people make me hopeful. Knowing a lot of people, seeing how they live their lives.  

Sarah's Mema [00:50:31] It's really easy to let the negativity, the fear work on you. I just want it to be over.  

Sarah [00:50:42] Yeah. Well, we all feel that.  

Sarah's Mema [00:50:43] I just don't want him in my face.  

Sarah [00:50:46] Well, he is the antithesis of basically every value you hold.  

Sarah's Mema [00:50:49] Absolutely. Every value. 

Sarah [00:50:51] I mean, what I learned from you is your sayings and grandmother sayings, like, a job worth doing is worth doing well. There's nothing worse than a liar.  

Sarah's Mema [00:50:59] Watch the pennies and nickels, and the dollars will take care of themselves.  

Sarah [00:51:02] Yes. I mean, it's like an anti-Trump edict book, basically.  

Sarah's Mema [00:51:08] Yeah, absolutely. Everything about him.  

Sarah [00:51:12] I definitely understand how it runs all over me the same way it runs all over you. I was thinking about this conversation as you've gotten older, you used to tell me that adult children were where it's at. Do you still feel like that, or do you feel like having adult children is harder than you thought it was at first?  

Sarah's Mema [00:51:26] No, it's fun. It's wonderful.  

Sarah [00:51:27] You like having adult children. You're here for it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:51:29] Oh, yeah.  

Sarah [00:51:30] Well, I don't know. As they go through hard things, you don't have any control over it. I don't love that. I don't love this trajectory I'm on.  

Sarah's Mema [00:51:36] It's hard for me to keep my mouth shut a lot of times.  

Sarah [00:51:39] Why do we have to?  

Sarah's Mema [00:51:41] Well because they're adults, and I want to treat them like an adult and let them make their own decisions. And I don't know the answer to everything. And matter of fact, I know fewer answers now than I did when I was 18. A lot fewer answers. A lot fewer.  

Sarah [00:51:56] I think you're very wise. I think you have a lot of answers. 

Sarah's Mema [00:51:58] The older you get, the more you realize how you don't know most things. You don't have concrete answers to very many things. I've gone through a-- I guess you'd call a crisis in faith or at least a crisis in religion. Not in faith, but in religion.  

Sarah [00:52:16] I didn't feel like you were ever very religious.  

Sarah's Mema [00:52:17] I never did like church. I shouldn't say that out loud here. 

Sarah [00:52:22] No, it's fine. This is a safe space.  

Sarah's Mema [00:52:27] One group of my friends are all Baptists. Every one of them.  

Sarah [00:52:31] But you're not a Baptist, obviously.  

Sarah's Mema [00:52:33] No, never been a Baptist.  

Sarah [00:52:35] So why do you feel like you've had a crisis of faith if you've never really liked religion.  

Sarah's Mema [00:52:39] And never admitted to myself.  

Sarah [00:52:41] You didn't feel like it was [crosstalk].  

Sarah's Mema [00:52:43] Yeah, attention deficit people do not like any kind of thing where they have to sit and listen.  

Sarah [00:52:47] Fair enough.  

Sarah's Mema [00:52:49] They just don't.  

Sarah [00:52:50] But what I learned from you growing up, and I feel like your voice in my head gets stronger every year, which is probably-- I have the experience. You are my grandmother, right? Grandmother was a huge influence in my life, obviously, but not in the same way. And so now I feel like I do what my mom does, which I quote you all the time, think about what you would say all the time.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:12]  I still hear my mother in my head all the time. Yeah, all the time.  

Sarah [00:53:16] But the other cycle I would like to break, and I do think for the most part I have, is I am not as self-critical as you, mother, or grandmother. I'm not hard on myself in the same way you guys are. 

Sarah's Mema [00:53:27] No.  

Sarah [00:53:28] I see that.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:29] That's a blessing.  

Sarah [00:53:30] Yeah. I don't know what how that happened, but I don't feel that.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:34] No, I don't think your mother is either.  

Sarah [00:53:36] No, she's not. You're right. She's not as self-critical.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:39] Well, that was expected of women's place.  

Sarah [00:53:44] Lots of expectations, no control. Not a good combo.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:46] No.  

Sarah [00:53:47] A very disempowering...  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:48] That's why I don't like leadership positions. You don't have any control. You might think you do, but you don't. 

Sarah [00:53:54] Because you're just in charge of a lot of people you can't ultimately control.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:57] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:53:57] Good point.  

Sarah's Mema [00:53:58] Exactly.  

Sarah [00:53:59] But I feel like what I learned from you, even though you were this big, living life single, traveling-- definitely my love of travel was instilled, I think, from you. You took me to Europe for the first time when I was 18. Your mom and me went.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:16] It was a wonderful time.  

Sarah [00:54:17] It was a formative experience.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:17] Was it four weeks.  

Sarah [00:54:18] Four weeks.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:19] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:54:19] A week in the English countryside and a week in London.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:21] And you were in love the whole time.  

Sarah [00:54:23] And I was in love, calling home.  

Sarah [00:54:25] Talking to my high school boyfriend.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:27] Rond up a huge phone bill.  

Sarah [00:54:28] Like $400 or something.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:30] Yeah.  

[00:54:30] But I think in my 20s it felt like you had all these expectations of, like, not other people as individuals, but as a collective. And it's not that I rolled my eyes, but I thought that's silly. And the older I get, I'm like, no, she's right. Everybody needs to understand that what they do affects everybody else and they need to stop thinking that they're an island. No man is an island.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:57] Exactly. We are not.  

Sarah [00:54:58] Not islands.  

Sarah's Mema [00:54:59] The more older I get, the more I realize how much we depend on each other.  

Sarah [00:55:02] Yeah.  

Sarah's Mema [00:55:03] In every way.  

Sarah [00:55:04] But you're also fiercely independent. You're a real paradox.  

Sarah's Mema [00:55:07] I am.  

Sarah [00:55:08] You think we affect each other, but you refused to accept help? Discuss.  

Sarah's Mema [00:55:12] Well, yeah I do. Well, I'm doing better, though.  

Sarah [00:55:21] You are doing better. I mean, I guess it's not true that you don't accept help because you have lots of friendships and you don't form close friendships if you're never willing to connect and reach out and depend on other people. That's not how it works.  

Sarah's Mema [00:55:33] Yeah.  

Sarah [00:55:34] What's your secret to having all these friends? Because you have friends are younger than you. And that's where I worry as I get older, because all my friends are my same age. But I plan to live to 110, so I have to be making some younger ones.  

Sarah's Mema [00:55:44] When you get my age, you won't be looking forward to 110. Say that right now.  

Sarah [00:55:50] I got bionic arms and everything, so you never know.  

Sarah's Mema [00:55:51] There are very few of my people I grew up who are still alive. One of them-- I didn't know him, he was from Kettle. He died this week. And Lana's close to his son, who lost his wife the love of his life, about a year ago. And he's struggling terribly. So that was sad. And I think back to all those people that I knew that very few of them are around. 

Sarah [00:56:14] What's that like? 

Sarah's Mema [00:56:17] It's okay.  

Sarah [00:56:19] You'll make it. Okay, that's encouraging.  

[00:56:22] I always was, I could say, afraid I'd live to be old. My great grandmother lived to be 103 and was still in great physical shape except she didn't see [inaudible]. I don't like old age much.  

Sarah [00:56:38] I know. You struggle. 

Sarah's Mema [00:56:39] I don't like it. One of my friends that-- and he came into my defense. I found this thing about Donald Trump, and I knew it would poke the bear and it was okay. And I got all these responses and some were real ugly. One of them said these people that go on and they start out with all these Democrats are such awful, evil people. Well, half the population is Democrat. You live in a country where you think half the people are evil? Why don't you leave? You know, that kind of stuff. And so, he was defending me and he loves it. He pocks the bear all the time. His name is Jason Berry [sp]. You might have picked up on him in some way. He's lives in New Orleans. And he called me elderly. He said, "And you attack this elderly lady." And I was like, "Jason, I'm old. I'm not elderly." I don't know what the distinction is, but that's the way I felt. Elderly? No one have to call me elderly.  

Sarah [00:57:32] Elderly.  

Sarah's Mema [00:57:34] Old, yes.  

Sarah [00:57:35] I mean, at 88, you live on your own, you drive.  

Sarah's Mema [00:57:42] Oh, yeah, I do.  

Sarah [00:57:44] You take what, no medications?  

Sarah's Mema [00:57:47] I take Zerotex.  

Sarah [00:57:49] I don't think that counts.  

Sarah's Mema [00:57:50] Same as [inaudible]  

Sarah [00:57:51] I mean, you have this sort of golden idea of reaching this age, and it's still hard.  

Sarah's Mema [00:57:57] Yeah, it's hard. I'm clumsy. I have some vertigo that aggravates me to death. Aches, pains, physical problems.  

Sarah [00:58:11] This podcast that I listen to that we're basing this conversation on, Wiser Than Me, a lot of them are creators and so they're just still working. Do you think you feel different if you were still working, or if you had a job that you could work at this age?  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:20] No.  

Sarah [00:58:21] No, you'd still struggle. It's still hard.  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:24] Yeah. It's a full-time job.  

Sarah [00:58:25] Being old?  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:26] It's full time.  

Sarah [00:58:28] That makes sense.  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:28] By the time I take care of my car, which now needs tires and needs to be clean; my house, and my body. 

Sarah [00:58:34] Because everything takes longer, too.  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:38] Yeah, everything takes longer.  

Sarah [00:58:39] That makes sense.  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:40] Yeah, it's hard work.  

Sarah [00:58:42] But what do you think about being 89 or 90 or 95 or 100? Do you think about it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:49] No, no, no. I don't want to be 100.  

Sarah [00:58:51] You don't want to be 100? You're so close, you can spit on it.  

Sarah's Mema [00:58:55] No. That's 12 hard working years? It keeps getting harder. It does.  

Sarah [00:59:03] So what do you think about death?.  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:04] My mother put on such a show. I didn't think that it was going to be like this.  

Sarah [00:59:09] But what do you think about death?  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:10] I'm not afraid of that. I'm afraid of the process.  

Sarah [00:59:12] You're not afraid to die?  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:12] I'm afraid of the process. My biggest fear is a nursing home. My only fear.  

Sarah [00:59:19] Is a nursing home. That's so interesting. Why?  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:22] And pain of death. Because it's not a good place.  

Sarah [00:59:26] Some of them are popping, Mema. They've got schedules.  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:28] I don't want to go. Assisted living, I'm all for assisted living. Where daddy was over at Jackson Oaks, it's lovely. I could do that. Fine. I think about it sometimes [crosstalk].  

Sarah [00:59:41] I love a schedule of activities.  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:43] I have this other problem with having help in my house. Like I said, I love the guy that did my bathroom.  

Sarah [00:59:49] Well, you've lived by yourself half your life now.  

Sarah's Mema [00:59:51] And I don't want somebody in my house. Nobody can play to suit me. I can't clean to suit myself. I've got a perfectionist streak, which is an awful thing to have. A terrible thing. Terrible curse to be a perfectionist because there's no perfection.  

Sarah [01:00:03] That's right.  

Sarah's Mema [01:00:04] So you're always uphill and everything's uphill. You can't get there. And the more I'm in my house and I see things need to be clean, need to be fix, need to be done. Move the furniture around, do this, do that, it is just crazy. 

Sarah [01:00:18] I'll just send my kids over, and you can fill your life with your great grandchildren.  

Sarah's Mema [01:00:22] I spend so much time with little things that I used to not even have time to think about, much less do. 

Sarah [01:00:26] Yeah.  

Sarah's Mema [01:00:28] Was not even aware existed.  

Sarah [01:00:29] Yeah. I mean, I think that's the tough part, right? You're busy. I do think I love being busy so much. I do think about, well, what will happen when the kids aren't here? What will happen when I retire?  

Sarah's Mema [01:00:39] Well, you'll get into something else.  

Sarah [01:00:40] Yeah. I'll find something else [crosstalk]. 

Sarah's Mema [01:00:42] And something else. 

Sarah [01:00:43] Because you are busy still.  

Sarah's Mema [01:00:44] Because you need a project. I have to have a project to be happy, but they wear me out.  

Sarah [01:00:49] That's a real paradox.  

Sarah's Mema [01:00:50] I do not want a big enough project to have to move. I do not want that most time. But then I have those moments on. Okay. Well, I'll buy another car. Oh my gosh, getting used to those darn smart car. Smart TVs, smart watches. 

Sarah [01:01:08] But you have not let tech slow you down. You are pretty technical adaptable. 

Sarah's Mema [01:01:12] It drives me crazy. It's just always an aggravation.  

Sarah [01:01:18] So what would you tell someone at 88? What do you want me to understand that you don't think I get yet or just the second half of life?  

Sarah's Mema [01:01:28] The thing that surprised me is I think I didn't know how to be old. I still don't know how to be old. Some people can just lie back, get their recliner and feel okay about it and drink that Coke and eat all the wrong food.  

Sarah [01:01:49] I watched that couple that they travel and before they hit the road, they get a donut and they sing a song about their donut. I was like, that's the life right there.  

Sarah's Mema [01:01:58] Yeah. 

Sarah [01:01:59] They just sing a little song about that before they eat that donut.  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:01] [Crosstalk] for not doing those things. 

Sarah [01:02:04] So maybe the key to being old is not being so hard on yourself.  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:08] Well, then if you let yourself go, then you're already sick and you're still here.  

Sarah [01:02:12] It's true. Well, that is the paradox of women aging. We live longer, but we have poorer health. But you had [inaudible]. You are not that person.  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:20] I am so blessed with good health I have. But I do have some issues that are a real aggravation, which I won't go into out loud.  

Sarah [01:02:27] I thought that's what old age is, it's complaining about your health. My friends and I joke we already do that. Talking about our procedures and everything. Well, you're still my goal. You're still what I want to grow up and be like.  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:39] Well, I have to keep setting that example.  

Sarah [01:02:40] That's right.  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:41] So I have to keep living up to your expectations.  

Sarah [01:02:43] Exactly right. I mean, not many people would volunteer to say, yeah, sure, I'll come and talk about my life and vulnerabilities and struggles. Why not?  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:52] Why not? Yeah.  

Sarah [01:02:53] I think it's pretty brave. I've always seen you as brave.  

Sarah's Mema [01:02:57] It's foolish sometimes.  

Sarah [01:02:59] Well, doesn't bravery include a little bit of foolishness?  

Sarah's Mema [01:03:02] It does. Yeah.  

Sarah [01:03:04] Well, I love you and I'm glad that you're my grandmother.  

Sarah's Mema [01:03:06] Well, thank you. And I love you, too. And I'm glad you're my granddaughter. I'm so proud of you.  

Sarah [01:03:11] You've been such a good example for me. It was such a gift to have you two doors up my whole life growing up.  

Sarah's Mema [01:03:15] It was a gift for me, too.  

[01:03:16] Music Interlude.  

Beth [01:03:27] Thank you to Sarah and Mema for that beautiful discussion. My grandmother Joy died when my youngest daughter, Ellen, was four days old. I gave the obituary at her funeral, which was a very out of body experience for me because I was a new mom again and recovering from birth and getting to know Ellen and I had our daughter Jane, who was almost four. So it was a busy time, and this was a nice chance for me making this episode to kind of sit back and think more about my grandmother and what I would hope she could hear from me if she were here today. My grandmother's middle name was Joy, and she ran with it. She kept her house well stocked, closet shelves filled with board games, a side table with a cabinet for decks of cards. Reese's peanut butter cups in the silverware drawer.  

[01:04:20] She wore floral prints and costume jewelry and lipstick every day. She wasn't sure what the point of a coat was if it wasn't red. She tied Clover into necklaces and filled gallon jars with sweet pickles. She set the table days before a party and covered it with a white sheet. She made paper chains to count the days until Christmas, until summer, until a vacation. She was a master of anticipation. She either told the truth bluntly or kept a secret forever. She got mad and stayed that way until she was ready to change modes. She moved her mother into her house and spent much of her adult life caring for her, keeping her hair done and her nails polished and her stockings stretched up beneath the hem of dresses and the nightgowns.  

[01:05:08] She lost her husband unexpectedly and too young. And I wonder what it would have been like to have seen her in love. She served breakfast, dinner and supper, and sausage was always a possibility. She sliced canned peaches and tossed them in strawberry Jello. She encouraged me to have kids so I wouldn't miss out on what she said is the best life has to offer. She felt God really blew it in designing birth and death. She left us before she died. And I would give anything for her hard drive. What all was there to remember that she couldn't access? My grandmother's middle name was Joy, and every time a breeze rattles the wind chimes from her funeral, I know that somewhere, somehow, she is still running with it.  

[01:06:05] Thank you so much for joining us today as we celebrated our grandmothers. We'd love to hear about the special people in your lives and how you commemorate them and their life experiences. We'll be back in your ears on Tuesday with a brand-new episode. Until then, have the best weekend available to you.  

[01:06:21] Music Interlude.  

Sarah: Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production.  

Beth: Alise Napp is our Managing Director. Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.  

Sarah: Xander Singh is the composer of our theme music with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.  

Beth: Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.   Executive Producers: Martha Bronitsky. Ali Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holladay. Katie Johnson. Emily Helen Olson. Barry Kaufman. Katherine Vollmer. Laurie LaDow. Lily McClure. Linda Daniel. The Pentons. Tracey Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stigers. Karin True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Amy Whited. Lee Chaix McDonough. Morgan McHugh. Jen Ross. Sabrina Drago. Becca Dorval. Christina Quartararo. Shannon Frawley. Jessica Whitehead. Samantha Chalmers. Crystal Kemp. Megan Hart. The Lebo Family. The Adair Family. Genny Francis. Leighanna Pillgram-Larsen. The Munene Family. Ashley Rene. Michelle Palacios. 

Sarah: Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston. Michelle Wood. Nichole Berklas. Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.