My Granddaughters are the Next Steel Magnolias

In honor of International Women's Day I am reprinting this column from 2012.  This long line of smart, savvy, self-possessed women lives on in my daughters and granddaughters.  They make me proud, joyful and, most of all, hopeful for a better tomorrow.  

In a little over two weeks my husband and I both lost our mothers.  One 89 the other 91 years of age, they died of the rigors and complications of old age.  No on lives forever, and if we do it right, our children bury us, never the other way around.  The fact is that our mothers lived lives that were celebrated more than they were mourned.

            These women were made of steel.  They had lived through it all: the great depression, the dust bowl, wars, economic and social upheaval.  They sent their husbands to battle in World War II and their sons to the jungles of Viet Nam.  They saw their grandsons—and granddaughters—put on the uniform of their nation and ship out to Iraq and Afghanistan.  When we were attacked on September 11th I called my mother and was steadied by her calm.  She had seen all this before.  Having lived through Pearl Harbor she knew two things: the world kept turning and justice would be done. 

            “God pays slow, but God pays in full.” 

            My mother and my husband’s mother were both very different and very alike.  By education, one was a nurse, the other a teacher.   Tom’s mother stayed home once her family arrived; my mother always had a paying job outside the home.  But they were both feminists in their way, recognizing the inequity of pay and opportunities for women and seeing this as inherently un-American.  They were strong believers in education, reading, self-sufficiency and life-long learning.  They wanted their children to succeed and saw education and hard-work as the only way up and out.  They were thrifty and believed in living within ones means.  Saving was almost as important as church attendance. 

            “Use it.  Wear it out.  Make do.  Do without.”

            They were religious on a deeply personal level, but were neither bothered nor bedeviled by other people’s beliefs or lack thereof.  There lived their faith.  They raised their children in their faith, but somehow let us know that our relationship with God was uniquely ours.  When it came to matters of faith they chose to lead by example, and leave the rest to the Holy Spirit. 

            “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”

            Their politics was Republican but with an asterisk.  Neither would give money or support to a talking head who couldn’t come up to a single constructive idea beyond the catch-all phrases of, “…lower taxes…smaller government…cut waste…”  They liked all of those ideas but realized that complex problems truly do need complex solutions, and they considered reasonable taxation to be the price you pay for living and thriving in the greatest democracy on the face of the earth.  Neither mother had a bigoted bone in her body and any comment, joke or reference that smacked of bigotry was met with censure. There were certain words never used in their homes.

            These women made this country great.  They worked unceasingly.  They asked for nothing.   They always gave more than they took.  They accepted disappointment as a challenge, never gave up, never gave in, and died in a state of grace.  I will never live up to them, but they make me want to try. 

            God bless the women who kept the faith.