Part 2 Blessings of The Elderly. The Good

Part 2 of Blessings Of The Elderly

People my age (36 or 37) and even younger have forgotten as a whole that our elderly are blessing to us and to be respected. We can learn so much from them either good or bad and in this part I will be focusing on the good.  In the  next part I will be focusing about the bad.
 Both sets of my grandparents lived through the great depression 2 as children and 2 as adults.  They all taught me by example how or by how they taught my parents to make things stretch whether it be clothing or food. Most of my memories involve the stretching of food, gardening, or preserving food.  One set of grandparents depending on the property they lived I remember vividly their garden they had, to provide their own food. Funny story I got yelled at once by my grandma S. for eating a carrot straight out of the ground without washing it as my grandpa would put manure on the plants. As a child I would pick berries for jams and pies, or even go to the farms and pick or pick other fruits and vegetables.  The blessing of them sharing these skills to my parents and even to me has helped me to this day.  Just a few years ago my father and I was given about 5 - 7 case of tomatoes that were close to going bad or had bad spots. Well anyway instead of throwing them away like most would do we cut off the really soft spots and made tomato sauce and then canned it, that helped stretch my families food for many months to come.   I still own many homemade blankets and even a doll my grandmothers have made.  If it wasn't for them passing down their skills to my parents and me some days my current family would not have been able to eat (I am not a knitter, crocheter, or sewer I would love to be but I get confused easily by it). 
I have learned about World War 2 from one Grandfather (the other one was not able to join the military as he was flat footed).  I learned about some of the history of the community I live (not always pretty stuff either).  I learned the love of playing games together (I used to watch my family play cards a lot).  Also being content with what you have.  The love of the outdoors (One Grandpa was a fire watch/logging equipment watcher when he was in his 60's and we would take supplies up to him in the mountains).  To work hard and that life will not be handed to you on a silver platter and not to ask for help unless you really need it.  Now trust me I know my grandparents were not angels my family is not one to hide the bad parts of people but that also helped me to be honest and to know the truth about life.  We need to be as a society willing to be open to learn from others whether they be a young child to the 80 year old at our church. My life has been blessed by the elderly I have learned from personally or from a far.

If the elderly kept their knowledge, life skills, and hurts to themselves what a sad and scary world would our world be.  Now like I said not all elderly are good examples or should be followed or even trusted but I will focus on that later.