karin dancy

I’m blessed to have known all four of my grandparents.

Poppy Sykes was larger than life, a creative soul whose good-natured pranks made strangers double over with laughter. Grandpa Booker had a gentle spirit and strong hands that worked farmland and mastered carpentry. Before her winter years, Grandma Booker created the most delectable cuisine with farm-grown fresh ingredients in her wood-burning stove. And Granny Sykes’ yeast rolls, piping hot and buttered, quite literally melted in our mouths every Sunday after church.

All my grandparents were born before 1910. The time in which they lived, and all they witnessed and experienced, would make most of us fold and go hide in a corner. What strikes me most is that they not only survived, but also lived joyfully.

They were the very definition of resilience that didn’t stop at mental toughness. They genuinely cared for others, their church members, their community. They gave respect and expected it too, including from those of different backgrounds. They all lived long, full lives, beating all kinds of odds and statistics.

And, they held on. They held onto each other. They held onto their families. They held onto their faith.

Logic at times would’ve told them to do otherwise. But they chose to hold on. And it’s their example of choosing to hold on that lives in me and all my family, in the generations before and after me.

Especially when life throws everything from darts to boulders our way, let’s look to the resilient ones who came before us, the ones who held on. Perhaps they’re kin, but they don’t have to be. Examples are all around us, if we pause and seek them.

Like us, the resilient ones before us didn’t always have all the answers. Like us, they were challenged by life’s rollercoaster of ups and downs. Like us, they had doubts and tears and fears. But, they kept showing up anyway. They held on. And, we can, too.

I’m Curious . . .
Whose examples of resilience and holding on inspire and encourage you?