Grandfather's wisdom: 'Follow your dreams'

This column first appeared in the North Hills News Record, January 2, 1998.
Minor additions were made to enhance clarity.

New Year's Day is my favorite holiday. Since I was about 14 years old, I've started each new year by writing down my accomplishments from the previous year, goals for the coming year and any words of wisdom I collected along the way. 

Doing this year after year has kept me focused, and those wrinkled, handwritten pages help remind me how far I've come.

This New Year's, I also have been reading through a fairly thick journal. I gave it to my grandparents in March (of 1997) for their 60th wedding anniversary. They probably weren't expecting me to give them a homework assignment, but I did. 

 

I circulated the blank journal among my family who had gathered for the celebration and I asked each child, grandchild, and great-grandchild to write down one question they'd always wanted to ask the happy couple. 

 

The questions ran the gamut. Some were philosophical: "Is society better or worse today?" Some were straight-forward: "What stories can you tell me about the Holocaust?" 

 

I told my grandparents they had until Christmas to complete their answers, and I suspect they were furiously scribbling well into December. So in keeping with my New Year's tradition, I thought I'd pass on some of their reflections and words of wisdom. 

 

My grandparents were married during the Depression. (1937)

 

"When we first got married, we had nothing," Nana remembers. "We were rich when we could buy two Cokes at a time. We lived on what we had and never beyond our means. We didn't have a credit card when we got married, and when we finally got one, we never carried a balance."  

 

My grandfather fought in World War II. (European front.) He was drafted even though he had a 6-year-old son--my father. For two years, my grandfather lived the hell of war. He described a concentration camp he helped liberate, "When approaching the town, you could smell the stench of dead flesh and burned bodies. There was a long ditch with uncovered dead bodies in it...The prisoners were nearly starved, and you could count their ribs from across the street." 

 

Left alone with a young child, my grandmother agonized. 

 

"I lived every day wondering if I would get a telegram telling me he was missing in action. Once, six weeks went by without a letter. His mail was censored so he couldn't tell us where he was."

 

After the war, my grandfather went into business for himself. He worked long hours and long days, but he says, "I never saw anything down the road of life that made me think I wanted to quit, give up or turn back. There was nothing that I could use as springboard to put me on top. A little stamina, ingenuity, determination, fortitude and some divine direction can conquer almost anything."  

 

Looking back, he says, "I believe that everyone in the United States today, as well as the world over, is much better off economically than 50 or 60 years ago." 

 

Nana agrees, saying that a trip to the movies or getting an ice cream cone was a very big deal years ago. 

 

"But you never did both," she said. "When people talk about the good old days, they can have them. I like all of the modern conveniences." 

 

To wrap up my New Year, I'll add these words of wisdom to my collection. Always the practical one, Nana  advises: "Don't worry. It's never so bad it can't get worse or so good it can't get better." 

 

And with more than 80 years under his belt, my grandfather adds: "Follow your dreams and let nothing deter you on the road to fulfilling them."  

 

© Deborah A. Ayers  All rights reserved.