A theme which has repeatedly presented itself to me throughout my life is the idea that, though many years, even decades, separate generations of family members, one can always find applicable lessons from their elders if they employ just a bit of curiosity.
In a recent conversation with my grandmother, whose real name is Cathy Naugle, but we affectionately refer to her as “Grammy,” I was dumbfounded by just how similar our stories were. She is my mother’s mother, and we had strikingly similar childhoods, similar desires for our families and attitudes towards life that were, in many ways, indistinguishable from one another.
My Grammy has always been an incredibly self-deprecating individual. In fact, when we began the interview, I assured her that no answer would be too long, and she would be able to talk about herself as much as she wants. Her response?
“Some people think I talk too much,” was her sarcastic retort.
I’m beginning to think that I derive a fair amount of my sense of humor and wit from her. After all, my siblings and I spent quite a bit of time with her when we were children.
Grammy, 72, was born and raised into a lower-middle class family in Lewistown, a small Pennsylvania borough with a population of about eight-and-a-half thousand people. Financially speaking, times were tough for her and her four siblings during their childhood.
“I was just telling somebody the other day, (my mother) didn’t have any place to put us,” Grammy said. “She just took a dresser drawer and put a pillow in it to stick her baby in for bed time.”
The youngest of five children, Grammy’s life took a dramatic turn at the age of 15 when her father, who suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses and substance abuse, departed from their family without returning. She spent her final years in high school being raised by a single mother who hadn’t been in the work force for the better part of two decades.
Though her father had made the choice to pursue drugs and alcohol over his family, Grammy still has a lot of compassion for him and others with similar struggles.
In reference to those struggling with mental illness and substance use disorders, Grammy still chooses compassion over condemnation to this day.
“You feel bad for them, because you know that they’re sick. Alcoholism is a sickness, mental illness is a sickness, and there’s part of them that’s not responsible,” she said with a shocking display of empathy towards someone who had devastated her family’s dynamic.
While children often model similar behaviors in adulthood that they’d seen as children, Grammy chose a different route, determined that her childhood horrors would have no place in her future or the future of her children. Something that, for some reason or another, I thought was a profoundly unique struggle of my own.
Though she admits she’s lived a wonderful life, she often thinks fondly on her childhood desires to be a home economics teacher, a goal that she wasn’t able to financially pursue.
“My mother made $56 a week to feed five kids and keep a house,” she said with an air of pride. “It was tough, and there were times we were hungry, but we made it.”
At this point in the conversation I could feel a dash of shame that I had never taken the opportunity to ask her these questions before. There were so many instances in my early life where her story could have propelled me through difficult circumstances into a better outcome, but perhaps that’s a bit of the stubbornness that she says I get from her side of the family.
She never wanted her kids to struggle like she did, so she often worked two to three jobs at a time to ensure their financial stability and well-being. She worked at Liberty Mutual, coached cheerleading and ran a small sewing business on the side.
A young mother, she had her first child, my uncle Chad, at the age of 19, and she gave birth to my mother just two years later. By the time she was 41, both of her children were out of the house and pursuing careers in the U.S. military — something she’s incredibly proud of.
She had a hand in raising my siblings and I as well. We often spent time at their house on the weekends when we were young, and following my parents divorce, my Grammy and Pappy welcomed us into their home for approximately nine months until we could afford our own place to live.
Admiration, appreciation, gratitude: there are no better words to describe my feelings toward her.
Still to this day she offers comfort and support to her family at any moment she can. At the close of our conversation, after all of the tears and reminiscing, she offered up one of the greatest compliments one could offer their grandson.
“I see you as being a wonderful father,” she said. “Because you’re going to do everything to keep them from going through what you did in your childhood.”
High praise from a woman of such profound character.
