3 true cliches from Grannie to help you live happier

My maternal grandmother passed away last week. She was 86 and she lived a full life.

By the end, she wasn’t healthy at all – she would get winded walking short distances, she was obese, and she had diabetes, two kinds of cancer, a brain tumor, and a pacemaker that was running low on batteries.

Many times I wanted to help her get healthier, but after a certain point, it didn’t matter to her that she was eating pudding for lunch. She was old, and dammit, she was going to enjoy her last days.

Thinking back on her life, I remember the lessons she taught me – expressed in clichés – that made me healthier and happier:

“Be yourself”
That’s what she used to tell my mother as a teen when she was concerned about what other people thought of her.

Grannie was not your typical grandmother. I remember visiting her on the Lower East Side of Manhattan way before it was the hip destination that it is now. Back then, you didn’t want to go South of Houston. Avenue C, where she lived, was dangerous. And none of the cute boutiques or hip restaurants existed – it was mostly bodegas and pushcarts that held bottles of artificially colored and flavored toppings for hand shaved ices.

The longer I live, the more I believe this to be true. I’ve tried – really hard – to become what people want me to be, to fit in. And every time I tried, I’ve been the one who loses in the end.

“Do what you love”
Grannie was an individual – an artist, poet and pioneer. She’d take us to the museums to see the art. The walls of her apartment were covered with drawings and paintings. Notebooks and scrap papers of poetry hid in drawers.

Once she had me type up her poems. I think she wanted to submit the manuscript to a publisher, or publish them in some way. She never got published. I guess there’s always still time to publish her work, though.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”
Yeah, life is tough sometimes. But it all works out in the end.

Grannie seemed indestructible. She was sick for many years, had cancer treatments a couple of times. Heart surgery. But through it all, she recovered and lived on, enjoying many years with her family.

Her mind was still sharp until the end. She liked to read trashy romance novels. She didn’t want air conditioning in her house, even though this was one of the hottest summers on record. In her little house, she sat and read, watch TV, watched her cats play.