Growing up, there was no place I would rather be than at my Nana’s house.
Many days, we came directly from school to her house for snacks and supper. Long after my sister and brother scampered out the door to play basketball or follow my grandfather around the farm like little puppies, I sat at the kitchen table, ate Ritz crackers, and drank in my grandmother.
Everything about her was comforting to me: the way the containers in her cabinets all had a place; the way her clothes always looked fresh even after a long day; the way she washed the dishes and planned out dinner while playing Moon River on her cd player; the way she put ketchup and mustard in fancy containers before setting them on the table; the way she told funny stories about her brother and sister; and the way she taught me to make biscuits from scratch, over and over again.
Most of all, I loved the way my grandmother made me feel.
“What was the best thing you did today?” she would ask us when the bus dropped us off after school.
“You play so well by yourself,” she would nod approvingly as I played tea party with dolls retired by my Aunt Carole.
“I am so proud of you,” she would say about everything from my friendships to my 4-H speech rehearsals.
And, when I was lying on the sofa with my head touching the ground, spouting insults at my brother or nonsense at the ceiling while my grandfather huffed in his chair:
“Play a game of Chinese checkers with me?” she would implore, rescuing me from trouble.
Frequently, and much to my selfish dismay, I had to share her. I cannot remember a week going by as a child when there wasn’t some cake in the oven for a neighbor or someone “dropping by” in time for lunch or supper, just to spend time with her and eat from her table.
When my grandfather came in from the farm, moody and growly in his dusty denim jacket and free Farm Credit cap, she could make him radiate like the sun. Oh, how she praised him — leaving no doubt in his grandchildren’s minds that he was a good man, a kind man, and a competent man.
Come to think of it, we all radiated in, or perhaps reflected, her presence. It was uncommon, this joy she dispensed.
One day, I asked my dad about her parents . . . his grandmother and granddaddy.
“Oh, they were happy people,” he said with a smile. “My grandfather loved to joke. People were always coming over. Her aunts always gave me a Coke. Everyone loved them.”
So that explains it, I thought. Happy people beget happy people.
How I longed to be a part of that lineage! But though I dared to hope to for a sliver of inheritance from my grandmother, I was afraid that I was marked with my grandfather’s pessimism. When I fretted – sometimes to the point of physical illness – over piano or school work or my life trajectory, my father would help me decompress by taking me for a drive or just listening over the phone.
“Well, you get it honest, Missy,” he said on one of these occasions. “After all, you come from generations of Daniels trying to make a living farming sandy land.”
I laughed with my dad but my heart trembled, afraid that happiness would remain just beyond my grasp.
Life danced along, and I met my 20s. I called my grandmother from college, from law school, and from long walks with my dog as a newly married woman in Atlanta.
“Tell me something good,” she would say.
Some days, I had to think hard. Other days I bypassed answering her altogether and launched into the real purpose of my call: the opportunity to bemoan something or someone.
She would let me say about three sentences, and then she would succinctly end my verbal negativity with a cursory one-liner before asking about my husband or something else inescapably positive.
Oh, it could be so annoying! But, understanding that she had closed the door to my rant, I would take her cue and bring the conversation back out into the sunshine. Sometimes (rarely, but sometimes) I even forgot whatever it was that had me so upset in the first place.
In early 2009, ten days before my 28th birthday, we lost my granddaddy. Everyone knew it was coming, but it was still a protracted and wrenching experience. My grandmother had been a champion in the months leading up to his death, always complimenting his sitters, the people who delivered meals, the friends who sent her cards.
After his passing, I watched her carefully — sure that now she would crumble. My grandparents were the definition of a happy marriage. Nana’s life had been about serving Granddaddy and her family. What would she do without him?
I called her frequently to find out.
Would you believe it? She behaved the same as always. In the weeks after the funeral, she praised the man who helped her finalize my grandfather’s estate. In the following months, she commended the people who were “so good to her” by calling her and checking on her. A little later, she was “so proud of” the small regional hospital where she had a knee replacement. After she came home from surgery, she was “really blessed” to live near my mom and dad who could help her recover.
Hmmmm . . .
On what would have been her 60th wedding anniversary, she was baking a cake for a neighbor. On the first anniversary of my grandfather’s death, she had her children over for bar-b-que. On Valentine’s Day, she was making some goody for someone else and talking about all the wonderful people who had delivered chocolate to her.
“God is just so good to me,” she said.
Slowly, slowly . . . I began to acknowledge the intentionality of her actions. The positive comments, the noticing of others, the baking, the phone calls, the turning of negative conversations . . . these actions were not the result of the genetic lottery. No, these were the carefully cultivated responses of one engaged in the very purposeful practice of joy.
Just as it dawned on me that Nana had chosen her defining characteristic, I realized that she had not hoarded her method. As she practiced joy, she taught it: nurturing this discipline in those close to her. Through gentle repetition and example, she had gently coached us, showing us how to pursue her undaunting positivity. The evidence of her work was all around. My grandfather, my dad, me: our life resumes were all full of positive but unnatural decisions, modeled after her example. Somehow, she had entered a family disheartened for generations by the challenges of farming through drought and market crashes and other uncontrollable phenomena and changed our trajectory.
She is now 85, and we still talk regularly . . . these days over the background noise of my own small children, ages three and one. They both know their great grandmother and love her; she has rocked them, colored with them, and drummed on the table with them. Sadly, her aching knees and my new mother exhaustion prevent us from frequent in-person visits. Sometimes, six months pass before I see her sweet face.
Luckily for my boys, a little thing like distance can’t separate them from her influence. It seeps into my parenting in small but profound ways.
“What was the best part of your day?” I routinely ask my children when I pick them up from school.
“What is your favorite thing about your teacher?” I prod when my preschooler wants to stay home and watch cartoons.
“Your daddy is helping people,” I explain when my hard-working husband has to stay late at work.
Obviously, every day is not a perfect day. Many days I worry and fume and whine and despair. But then I remember that joy is a discipline, and I press on. Like my grandmother before me, I practice and teach, practice and teach, hopeful that one day my grandchildren will say:
“My grandparents were happy people.”
And maybe, if I play my cards right, they’ll realize sometime later in life that I taught them how to be happy, too.
* A version of this story, titled Choose Joy, was published by Guideposts Magazine in July 2015.
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