What’s Your Sauce?

Will. Great writing. Truly inspirational.
Yes I agree with you about ‘authenticity’. The best (if not the only) thing we really have as people is our uniqueness and our ability to express it. Sadly, too often this is trumped by contemporary societal pressures and expectations. Special in modern America where freedom seems to be more a slogan that an true practice anymore.
From my observations, I have noticed that this courage to be oneself is increasingly being lost by our culture. It seems that the older generation understood the true value of being authentically oneself much more that my generation (post boomer)
thanks to your reminder, I will start looking out for more people like Mary to inspire me to try and do the same.
thanks Will.

As I reflect on the woman Will so beautifully wrote about, my Grandma Mary, A few things became very clear. People were drawn to my grandmother not only because of her strength, but also because she was her authentic self. People who are real, or authentically themselves, give us permission to be ourselves and we are drawn to them like bees to honey.

Being with my grandmother was the most comfortable and comforting place on the Earth to me. I know it was the same for most everyone else who was around her. I realize now the power of being our authentic selves, the power of being the person God has meant for us to be.

Thank you Will for your words…they certainly do her justice.

Cheryl
Mary’s Blessed Granddaughter

I am truly sorry for your loss. Or should I say, our loss. Mary was the type of person that this world needs to be around. As I read the story, it just confirms one of my greatest fears; that the older generations who held core values and traditions are dying off. Lessons handed down through generations are dying with them. It’s not that our grandparents aren’t trying to instill in us the values that they received. It’s just that no one wants to take the baton and run with it. To much of the “ME” generation I suppose. The youth of this age have no grounding or knowledge of who they are because we didn’t have fathers to affirm us. Being 40 years old put me right in the middle of the generation gap and I can see the values that our grandparents held are the values that this generation shuns. The value of life, family, love, spirituality, and even the value of ones own self in Gods’ eyes is swiftly being tossed aside. Even Mary’s work ethic speaks volumes about who Mary was to Mary. Someone in that situation today would be found in the welfare line for a quick handout. Something for nothing. People like Mary take nothing and give everything. It wasn’t her prosperity that was remembered, it is her posterity. She will be missed by those of us who never knew her, but are still connected through our commonality.
Someone once asked me if I believe that we should be granted reparations by the government for the years of slavery that my ethnic race endured. I told them no because of one major reason, and that is because many of us cannot even identify any of our ancestors beyond our great grandparents. Money for the labor of someone we don’t even know shouldn’t even hold a candle to the knowledge that should have been passed down to us from them; and not just the chains and Old Negro Spirituals. Money can never replace the real things that have value in this life; the true knowledge of one another.

Mary was an inspiration in my life too. Her sauce made its way into my soul as my crew and I remodeled her bathroom some years ago. Her quiet strength was such that I found myself staying after work hours to share life stories with her. Her wit, strenght of character, resolve and humor all washed over me. The last time Mary and I spoke, she had me promising to never lose my love for people and construction. I am honored to have spent a little time with her and to have met some of those who have benefited much more from her sauce than I - her loving family.

Too many of us, like the big execs are afraid we will lose out, so we run around with our big expectations and fears of being conned. In the end it is so easy to sell out to the counterfeit. We confuse getting and winning with loving and living. Mary understood the real from the counterfeit. Confirming friendship is a bigger dream than any corporate prize - one endures the others fades.