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“You may not be able to control every situation and its outcome, but you can control how you deal with it.” ~Unknown
Life is often crazy and rushed. Sometimes it’s difficult to feel a sense of control. It can be utterly chaotic and leave us feeling lost.
This is exactly where I was two years ago. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I felt hopeless, directionless, and completely lost pretty much every day.
I didn’t feel like I had a grip on anything in my life, including my thoughts, emotions, and actions.
I had …
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“The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode, but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.” ~Audrey Hepburn
I was home for the summer on break from graduate school. As I walked into my childhood room, suitcase and duffle in hand, I noticed a small brown box on my bed. I placed my bags on the floor.
The box had a few simple items in it and was labeled “Mudder.” The nickname we called my grandmother.
Mudder had recently passed away after several years at a nursing home at the age of ninety-four. I went to her very small, sweet funeral, thankful to have had a grandmother I truly loved and knew had loved me.
Just before I left school, Dad and Uncle Zeke had gone through her estate, sorted things between them, and handled all of the things children are left to handle during those times. We each had a small sum of money left to us. Growing up in The Great Depression and living through World War II, Mudder had learned to make do with a modest lifestyle.
But no one had mentioned the brown box I now found on my bed. I realized it had been designated to me.
It contained two cardigans, a jewelry box, and a five-year journal from when she was in her twenties. What a treasure!
Growing up, to me, Mudder was just my grandmother. And sometimes when I was feeling wise, she was my dad’s mom.
I always knew my black hair came from her. I’d also inherited her sense of humor, love of reading, and my first name, Katherine. She was born just one day ahead of me, with some years scattered between us, on Valentine’s Day, which I always thought was very cool.
I knew she played the organ for her church and taught me how to play Moon River and Always. And every time we’d travel to see her in Atlanta, Georgia, we knew we’d have the same breakfast of bologna, scrambled eggs, buttered toast, and cut fruit.
I also knew she had a sharp tongue that each family member took a turn with. She wore orthopedic shoes, did crossword puzzles in a breeze, walked in her neighborhood every day, and would scratch my back for over an hour at a time.
I’d occasionally ask her questions about her life and what it was like growing up in the 1930s. She’d fill me in on our Irish heritage, what happened to each of her nine siblings, and what she did on her recent trip to visit her cousins in Florida. I’d ask her to tell me about the stars since I knew she’d had an interest from a long time ago.
But that was mostly it. She was my grandmother. I loved her and she loved me.
Once her diary was entrusted to me, however, I realized the obvious truth I’d overlooked for my whole life with her.
My grandmother had also been a young woman.
An engaged woman.
A celestial navigator for the U.S. Navy in the 1940s.
In this precious diary that was bestowed to me, I had five years of her life written in her own voice, by her own hand.
The journal was set up as five years per page. On one single calendar day, there would be five sections to write the date of each year and three lines designated per year. The entries were quite short but were filled with life.
On one single page, I could see five years of her history.
Beginning with her first day at the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi in Texas, the day she met my grandfather, the day he proposed, and the day she yelled at him for being out all night drinking and womanizing while she cared for two small boys at their home.
I learned how nervous and excited she was to start her new career. How things were laid out at the naval base, and what her living arrangements were. I began to read her history through the eyes of a bright, hopeful, and eventually heartbroken woman.
I didn’t know much about my grandfather. He passed of a stroke before I was born. I knew he was funny and charming, liked sports, and fished on Sundays. He also loved the bottle and ran around on my grandmother.
They ultimately divorced. No one talked about it much. It was a long time ago, after all. Plus, I’m not sure how much was known. It was all a bit mysterious and quiet.
In year one of her journal, I read about some friends she made and what a good time it was on the base. Reading the anticipation and wide-eyed joy that my grandmother, Katherine Valentine, felt during her f
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