Whenever I drive away from The Beach and head back to The Ranch there are roughly 3 or more stops that need to happen or else….my world implodes? People will be sad? Not sure, but those stops had better happen or else!
One of those stops absolutely has to be my grandmother’s house.
Now, first of all, I will always refer to her as my grandmother, never my grandma. What is the difference, you ask? In my opinion there is a class difference between the two titles. The word grandmother will forever be classier in my mind. Secondly, she is one of my all-time favorite people. She is one of the most innocent, naïve, classically sweet old ladies I’ve ever known and she just happens to be related to me! I’m a lucky girl. And I mean that relationally and physically, as I could’ve easily been in yet another car accident the other night when I stupidly let her drive us to dinner. In the dark.
I made a comment at the first stop sign about how I bet she never would’ve thought she’d still be driving at 90 years old. Her response: “I didn’t think I’d make it to 90!” That should’ve been my first clue that she is, in fact, fearless when it comes to driving no matter who may be along for the ride, because death is probably a welcome relief from carting around a 90 year old body.
A few blocks later she told me that she doesn’t drive at night anymore. And I’m pretty sure I saw a twinkle in her eye and a smirk on her face. I was starting to get the feeling that my mom and her sister have requested that she not do any night driving and my telling her we couldn’t take my overloaded car just gave her the green light to run wild through the streets at the dark hour of 6pm.
Oh. Shit.
Soon after, we had rounded a corner and I knew we were almost to the restaurant. Piece of cake, right? Wrong. What should be an easy drive down a straight street apparently looked like an obstacle course to this little lady who drives while looking through the steering wheel. We were almost to the end of the street when I couldn’t help myself any longer. My sweaty palms were begging me to say something about how close we were to all the cars on my side of the street.
Me: “So…uh…we got pretty close to that truck back there.”
Her: “Yep, but we didn’t hit it!”
I sat the rest of the way speechless. What else could I say? That darling little 90 year old had a point. Why be scared of what could have been when it didn’t actually happen. There is so much wisdom I have yet to learn from that woman. My all-time favorite person.
