Double Gin Single Tonic Lemon Not Lime
Mama, I asked, what do you think the meaning of life is? A 3-Minute Memoir
This story about Katy is from the Archive of March 2022. I bring it back for my new subscribers. If you have already read it, thank you!
My mother was my favorite drinking buddy. I would say, “Shall we have a drink, Ma?” And even at the age of 96 she’d light up and say “You bet!” I learned some of life’s most important lessons from her, only one of which was a good recipe for a gin and tonic.
# 1: She told me,
“You should listen to old people’s stories, even if you’ve heard the same stories over and over. I know I’ve told my old stories before — everybody in this family knows them by heart. But, I still like it when somebody asks me to tell about the time Peter and I accidentally set the haystack on fire. And the story of stealing the cream in the barn when mom and dad weren’t home. Oh, that was good stuff, that cream.”
Think of it. Those old family stories are the narratives of our time together as a tribe, a testament to what we have seen and done and been. They are what we leave behind as a legacy, proof of what we did with what we were given during our brief and transitory visit to this green Earth. Our old ones have a long past, and a short future. They have so many important things to say, if we will only take the time to listen.
#2:
“You don’t have to correct people, even if they are absolutely wrong. It’s not up to you to make everybody perfect, my sweetheart. You don’t need to fix other people. Mind your own damn business.”
Of course, she was right. Incredible as it sounds, so many people are not even the slightest bit interested in the benefit of my wisdom! Maybe you have experienced that too? A whole lot of people are not looking to learn anything new, least of all from the likes of you and me.
People’s delusions serve them in some way — that is why they hang on to them. And maybe they haven’t the energy to seek the truth on their own, and find it easier to memorize the sound bites in the spew and drivel of social media and TV? It’s tough to keep my mouth shut sometimes, but Mama taught me that peace is almost always more precious than being right.
#3:
“You should compliment people more. Everyone likes to be noticed for something, no matter how little. So, when you pass somebody’s grandma pushing her cart in the supermarket, tell her, ‘What a pretty pink blouse! That color looks beautiful on you.’ She’ll feel better all the rest of day, and you will too.”
Mama taught me that I should not only notice people and sprinkle meaningful compliments around, but also to be gracious when receiving a compliment. Never turn a compliment down or deny it; accept it with grace and just say thank you. “It is a present,” she told me. “You don’t want to hurt people’s feelings by throwing it back. ”
#4:
“Not everybody is going to love you, kid, and that’s okay. People don’t know how kind you are, what you have accomplished, how you feel, what you believe. They might not know, but you do, and people who love you do. And that is enough for anyone. So just let the criticism go.”
In my career as a leader of educational seminars, I was evaluated constantly. At the end of a long successful week of workshops, I would receive, say, 298 glowing evaluations from my student-teachers, and two evaluations that said my presentation wasted their time and that I hadn’t given them anything useful. And I would dwell on being rejected by two people! How foolish and egotistical I was to assume that everyone should find value in what I had to offer? It was ridiculous, and mama’s words helped.
# 5: I would wake up in the morning, groaning about my sore bones. I’d hobble into the kitchen to make the coffee, feeling old as dirt and mean as a snake, and Katy would step up.
"Well, we have made it through another night, and we are still on our feet. We still have most of our wits, and we have another whole day to find some good and do some good. Let’s make the most of it, honey, you never know which day might be our last.”
I sometimes wonder… if I knew that today was my last day, how would I spend it? Maybe I would stop worrying about stuff. Would I just go ahead and eat that bowl of ice cream with no guilt, leave the laundry in the basket and go sit on the porch chair in the sun for a while? Would I make a long over-due phone call, apologize to someone, remind someone of how much I love them and how important they have been in my life? Why don’t I just do all that right now? Why wait?
One evening Katy and I were sitting quietly on the porch in our rocking chairs like an old married couple, with our glasses of double-gin-single-tonic-lemon-not-lime. I was reading, she was just gazing out at the garden. “Ma,” I asked, “what do you think the meaning of life is?” She sat quietly a few seconds. “You know, I have asked myself that question for 96 years. The answer hasn’t come to me yet.”
I loved it that she said it hadn’t come to her “yet”. She remained optimistic to the end of her days. I learned from that, too.
First 100 years are the hardest. After that you don’t give a damn. That’s when the double gin kicks in. Knocks you off your rocker.
I bought what I thought was a lime Gatorade this week (which is my teetotaler’s version of a double gin, single tonic lime not lemon), but found it was cucumber plus lime. Never again.