Covid-19 Guidebook: What Would MeMe Do?

The other day, author Mary Laura Philpott posted on Twitter that (paraphrasing) “If anyone needs their mother right now, and she is not available, I have more mothering to spare…” I’m very fortunate to have my mother available to me. We talk almost daily and it’s such a blessing she lives only a few miles away. But in these uncertain times, as much as I love being able to talk to my mom, I’ve been thinking a lot about my sweet grandmother, MeMe. She passed away at the age of 95 in 2007. I think about how she’d be reacting to all this Covid-19 business. What would MeMe do? 

I wish I could visit MeMe in her house right now. She’d greet me with a hug and tell me she’d made a chocolate sheet cake for me (that puts Zoe’s to shame, sorry Zoe’s). She’d tell me to “go wash up,” and I’d head to her bathroom that smells of roses and Campho-Phenique, and if my grandfather were still alive, his foamy shaving cream in the mug with the thick brush. Just to be able to smell that particular bouquet of aromas right now would be a soul-balm. 

A few weeks ago, I was cleaning out some papers and found a card MeMe sent me for no occasion. It started out with her typical greetings to all of us and then turned into a weather report. “It’s been sunny here this week but they say it’s getting ready to be rainy this weekend. And it’s going to get a lot colder here, too. Is it getting colder there?” “Here” and “there” were Huntsville, Alabama and Nashville, Tennessee, just a couple hours apart. But MeMe wasn’t really writing about the weather. She wanted to let us know she was thinking of us, and she loved us.

MeMe had a lot of good advice, some offered verbally and some simply as the way she lived her life. A lot of these principles apply to our current Covid-19 situation.

1.Do not waste

MeMe was ahead of her time as an early recycler. She would re-use all kinds of things. I thought of her this week when, instead of throwing away the plastic bag from our sandwich bread,  I saved it like I’d seen her do so many times. These bread bags became MeMe’s version of “baggies.” Living through the Great Depression had made her aware of not being extravagant with resources. I know a lot of us are re-thinking how much daily toilet paper we use.

2. Keep On the Sunny Side

This song was a favorite of MeMe’s, and she would often recite the title if not sing the whole chorus. Whenever we’d talk about something worrisome, MeMe would say as she smoothed her pants on her thighs or adjusted her eyeglasses, “Well, we’ve got to keep on the sunny side, always on the sunny side.” And it’s overly simplistic. But still true. And I felt like maybe I’d done something right as a parent when, for a school assignment this year, my teenager had to list certain songs that had meaning in his life, and this was one. 

The first lines speak to the most basic of universal truths: “There’s a dark and a troubled side of life. There’s a bright and a sunny side, too.” The news offers dark and troubling things on a daily basis. But there are also bright stories among those: of people offering to help each other, even strangers helping strangers. Or it might be smaller, quieter bright spots in your own home of your family time together or getting to read your favorite book. I love this song’s optimism that we must always look to the bright and sunny to help get us through the dark and stormy.

3. Health and Hygeine

My grandparents used peroxide as a daily mouthwash and both had all their teeth when they died. They grew a huge garden of fresh vegetables and well-rounded meals were a staple. MeMe also believed in physical exercise, and when she no longer could use her stationary bike, she did “chair” exercises and would show me the toe-touches and stretches she did. When I’d visit, she’d make us a healthy evening snack of oranges and a few peanuts while we watched the Barbara Mandrell show (please check out the Aladdin-style outfits in this clip).

4. Reach out

Perhaps the biggest upside during this quarantine period has been the way people are reaching out to one another. MeMe was good about a phone call to friends or family for no reason other than to say hi, or a quick card or note to someone to let them know she was thinking of them. While we have more time on our hands to reach out to friends and loved ones right now, here’s a challenge to all of us to see how we can keep up that pace once things get back to a more normal rhythm. I’d like to start sending more hand-written notes. Work and children and schedules keep us busy, but if we don’t put the time in for our connections with our friends, we’re missing out. 

5. Keep the Faith

MeMe was a strong Christian and would often quote scripture for specific circumstances. “Cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you,” (1 Peter 5:7) was a particular favorite. My own struggle in my faith has to do with what “letting go and letting God” looks like. I jump between my need to control and know what the next plans are versus giving everything over to God. It reminds me of a parent-teacher conference I had with my now teenage son’s second-grade teacher.

She was one of the most amazing people as well as a loving and gifted teacher. She said to me: “As long as I have the schedule for the day written on the board, Hayes is fine. But if I haven’t put it all up, or I don’t have the full sequence of events or times, he will keep asking me about it until I finally get it up there for him.”

Aren’t we all kind of like that? We want to know the plan today, tomorrow, and next week. If we know what the plan is, if we know the timetable, then we have some semblance of control. The run on hoarding toilet paper was a type of control. “No, we may not be able to control this pandemic, but our household will have toilet paper!” I think about MeMe’s faith, her optimism, her perseverance through so many circumstances. And I think about sitting at her piano and going through her hymnal. One of my favorite hymns is all about relinquishing my control: Have Thine Own Way. 

As we continue on…

I hope this period, fraught with concerns and uncertainly, is also granting you with more time to return to simple blessings of nature, family, and friends, even if some of those are experienced through a phone call. And I’m going to do as MeMe would do: pray for the sick, pray for our health care workers and scientists. Conserve resources. Seek out laughter and joy daily to keep on the sunny side. Practice good hygiene and health and wellness. And the most MeMe-like thing of all, keep the faith that this, too, shall pass. 

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To read more on Me-Me, click here: Sometimes, You Just Need a Bigger Ladder

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