CONTENTMENT
When asked what was the main attribute that contributed to her longevity, my ninety-eight year old grandmother would retort quite defiantly, ‘Contentment!’
This rather puzzled the younger ones, as she had led such an isolated life on a country dairy farm, rearing four children and working hard from daylight to dusk…or more.
It did not occur to her that she was hardly done by when asked to skin the calf that her husband had killed that morning…No, she was glad that the family would have fresh meat for dinner that evening. She was happy as she stored the various cuts of meat in the cool room and planned when she would cook and serve the fry. She had heard of city folk who refrained from eating the offal, but her children always ate with gusto whatever was on their plates. And she was content.
She was not aware of proteins, but she knew that her hard-working husband and growing children needed eggs and meat to thrive. Last week it was boiled rooster on the table with sweet potatoes and turnips from her garden, after a good plateful of the herbed soup in which the bird was cooked. With perhaps porridge for breakfast and only boiled spuds for lunch, it was a wholesome and welcome meal. Even if her portion was always the spurned ‘last over the fence’, it made her happy to give her family the pieces they enjoyed best.
Then there were the feathers that must be sorted and the downy ones washed, boiled and put in a sugar bag that was left hanging on the line, through rain, hail and sunshine, until they were dried and fluffy, ready to add to the bag that would ultimately become a pillow. It was a lot of tedious work, but it made her smile to think of that lovely soft cushion for someone’s head. Such contentment. And so it goes.
Because I am nearing my grandmother’s age, I often think about her, and marvel at her generous attitude. I try to emulate her. Of course, whatever one’s circumstance, it is always good to strive for betterment in some way, but having tried, to be happy with one’s lot. We could all do with Grandma’s way of living, her contentment.