Grandma’s secret to a long life

By Amy Heydlauff

This month I attended a memorial service for my grandmother who died closer to the age of 104 than to 103. Not surprisingly, all in attendance spoke of her long and satisfying life, and I believe I may have identified her single greatest secret to this achievement.

She did many of the things they talk about in The Blue Zones, a book about pockets of people on earth who live the longest. As far as her health habits, many were as one might expect. Of course, she ate well with a focus on whole grains, fruits and especially vegetables, at least until her last decade when she indulged her sweet tooth. Unlike many who live alone for decades, she prepared real, balanced meals for herself.

Most of her life she was active. She gardened, growing and preserving much of her family’s produce. She also raised five children in a time when parents walked upstairs to check on their children rather than depending on a monitor. In one of my earliest memories of Grandma, I recall walking into a darkened room and discovering her doing yoga. For decades, Grandma stretched, balanced and focused through her yoga practice.

Grandma, who loved a good party, went to speakeasies during prohibition. But by her mid-thirties, she crossed tobacco and alcohol off her list of pleasures. She gave them up for good and never looked back.

She was fully engaged in the world. She believed her life had purpose and sought opportunities to provide value to her days and the days of the people around her. Right up until her last few years she learned. And learned. And learned. She read everything, followed politics closely and wrote her local and national elected officials regularly. She also wrote to her family. She was a master correspondent, and this activity kept her connected to the world around her.

When in her early ’90s, Grandma gave her minister a letter she wanted read at her funeral. It sat sealed throughout the years, and we were intrigued to hear from her, from the grave. In it, I believe, lay the key to her long and satisfying life.

Like the centenarians in The Blue Zones, Grandma was a person of faith. To the end she trusted in a higher power, and she gave thanks for the blessing of her life.

We weren’t surprised to hear her humble thanks, but we also knew this gratitude wasn’t her default mode. She worked her whole life to become her best self, and she gracefully accepted the painful things that inevitably occurred. I believe a big part of the reason she lived so long stems from the fact that she was always striving. She never saw herself as a finished product and kept working to grow.

Whatever we want to change about, enhance or banish from our lives, we need to keep working toward achieving those goals. That is the legacy Grandma left, and now she has earned her peaceful rest.

###