Grandpa's Wisdom

I love my grandparents. All of them. My mom's mom is home with the Lord and I miss her dearly. Her widower, mom's dad, lives with my parents for 6 months out of the year. He's a kick!
My dad's parents live on a ranch in the California dessert. I spent many summer weeks there in my teen years. Before their home was a ranch, they were dedicated to breeding and showing dogs. Basinjis mostly. And a few labs. They had/have quite the set up and my happy place is their back patio. I would sit in a chair on the patio and relish the balmy dessert breeze that would swoop past me to the wind chimes all around. Heaven.
My grandparents are the most fascinating people I know. My grandma spent summers playing with Liz Taylor (no lie) as a little girl and babysat for another movie star. She also worked at Disneyland when my Dad was younger.
My grandpa is a hard working man that is a mind over matter kind of guy. I love him and our talks dearly. Every morning during my stays, I would have to try to wake up early enough to catch up with him on his daily walks. He walks far into the dessert, exercises, then walks back and does backbreaking work all day.
He reads. He loves westerns. He speaks his mind. He has a heart of mush.
As a teenager, I met my grandpa, aunt and cousin in South Carolina, then we drove to Florida to visit my grandpa's brothers. The drive took a few days and when we would settle into a hotel room for the night, off he and I would go for a walk on the beach. On one walk he said, "You and I have a problem. We don't look people in the eye. Let's practice on each other this trip."
Ever since I have worked hard to look people straight in the eye. I still drop my gaze, but I'll hear him in my mind, reminding me to look up.
He taught me to drive in the dessert. He had a little car that we used a screw driver to start. It was automatic. Oh, the fun we had! First he took me to the engine and explained how it all worked. At the time all I could think was, "I want to drive now!!!" Oh how I wish I would have listened better. Something about pistons...
I got off easy - my dad had to take an entire engine apart and put it back together before he could drive.
The next summer was even more fun - he had a beat up Jeep to drive then. Ahhhhh!
My grandpa does nothing half way. Neither does my father. I wish I had more of them in me, but I'm more lazy, more willing to go just far enough to get the job done.
My grandpa told me once to do one thing every day I don't want to do.
"Builds character."
The day before my wedding, my grandpa and I scooted out the door for a walk along the river. I wish I could remember what we talked about. I can imagine he told me some stories and I'm sure I gushed and gushed about my soon-to-be-groom.
I didn't know all the things that would come with marriage and motherhood. Some days it's easy to fit in something I don't want to do, many times without a choice:
"I don't want to get thrown up on..."
"I don't want to wake up and feed you..."
"I don't want to etc, etc, etc..."
Other days I look for things. I do more laundry. Clean more. Pull weeds. Choose the right attitude.
Some days it's a struggle. But, I keep thinking of grandpa and all the work I know he is doing and what he would think of me if he knew I was whining about laundry.
And I decide to go beyond cleaning the laundry...I think today I will actually fold it!