My grandmother on my mother's side was a major factor in my life. She was always there, offering strange advice and folklore, never listening to anything we told her, cleaning like a madwoman, farming...you name it. She also bought me every winter coat I ever got until I was married. She loved her great grandchildren. She mellowed as she got older, then she got sick and her personality disappeared.
She told me once that she would love to go to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Several times we planned the day, door to door service, no subways or cabs involved, but she always found something to stand in the way.
So, she never got there.
She died at some age in her 90s. In her life, she had lived in Ukraine in a hut with a dirt floor. She moved to the Red Shanties in Northampton, PA that at least had a real outhouse, not just a trek out to the back yard where one did one's business. She knew how to kill chickens, steal goose eggs right out from under the goose, sew awnings and make pirohi like a champ.
But she never got to do the one thing she longed to do.
There is a valid lesson to be had here.
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