What Are You Doing Today?
HOW TO MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR TIME
Annie loved crossword puzzles and bananas.
She loved the New York Yankees and the Daily News, which she read cover to cover every day of her adult life.
She played blackjack, read history, and told dirty jokes. Occasionally, she'd call out across the living room, "Johnny, make me a stiff drink."
People who met her said she reminded them of Edith Bunker because of her high pitched voice and Brooklyn accent.
She had curly black hair, huge boobs and wore Revlon's Honey Bee Pink lipstick from the minute she got out of bed each morning.
My grandmother was no saint, but she loved us like crazy and life was like a carnival when we were with her.
A few weeks ago, I almost told Lilah's boyfriend, "I can't wait for you to meet Annie." Bizarre, because she's been gone for years.
In her final days, I remember sitting in a diner with my mother, wondering aloud, "What will the world be like without Annie?"
She was 96 when she died. Most of her friends had gone before her, and those that remained were too old to travel. Still, the line for her wake stretched out into the parking lot and around the building and stayed that way for hours.
Of course some of those people were there for us, but most of them we had never seen before. The guy who played the guitar at the nursing home showed up - along with practically the entire nursing and administrative staff. My mother's brother's ex-wife's sister was there. And so was the cashier at the farm stand where Annie bought peppers almost ten years earlier.
Maya Angelou once said, "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." Annie had a way of seeing you for the person you wanted to be - the one you were afraid to show the rest of the world - and people loved her for it.
She never did a thing that most would call extraordinary. She never had much stuff, never traveled, I can't imagine what she would have put on a Linked In profile.
Regardless - as far as I could tell she died without regret, and the hole in this world that she left has since been filled with the stories of her antics and the way that they (and she) made us feel.
Everyone who ever met her has at least one Annie story.
My grandmother lived through the Great Depression and more than one war. She, in her own words, "didn't have a pot to piss in," and still managed to live life like it was one giant banquet table, set just for her.
She didn't worry about money.
She didn't care what people thought about her.
She didn't try.
Annie did what pleased her. She expressed every emotion fully as she felt it and let it go completely when the moment had passed.
If she loved you, you knew it.
More than any person I've ever known, my grandmother used her time wisely.
This Week: How Are You Using Your Time?
Those of you who are members of Camp Reinvention Online, may have seen a video I posted last week - The Time You Have (in jellybeans).
Rewatching it myself, I started to think of how I spend my time, about my goals and aspirations, about the pressure I put on myself and my life - and then I thought about Annie.
How do you want to use your remaining jelly beans?
