There are some things from childhood that never really leave us. They may disappear from our everyday conversations, but they are tucked away somewhere in our memories, waiting for something to bring them back.
Remember The Sooty Show? What about Crackerjack? And those hula hoops that seemed to be everywhere? I wonder how many of us spent hours trying to keep one spinning around our waist, only to watch it fall to the ground and start all over again.
Television certainly had its place in our childhood, but so did something that required no electricity, no television screen, and certainly no remote control.
Books.
Oh, the adventures we enjoyed between the covers of a good book!
I can remember reading long after I was supposed to be asleep, a flashlight tucked beneath the blankets, turning just one more page. Of course, one more page often became another chapter, and before I knew it, bedtime had become a distant memory.
Those books took us places we had never been. We met people who existed only in the imagination of an author, traveled to distant lands, solved mysteries, and occasionally frightened ourselves enough that we had to peek out from beneath the blankets to make certain everything was still where it belonged.
Isn’t it remarkable how a few words printed on paper can create an entire world inside someone’s imagination?
I suspect Grandma Cooper understood that better than most.
Grandma Cooper Had a Way With Words
With each passing day, something happens that reminds me of Grandma Cooper.
Sometimes it is something I hear. Other times, a familiar smell takes me back to her kitchen, or a passing conversation brings to mind something she said many years ago.
I continue to be amazed by that little woman and the wisdom she carried through life.
I have written about Grandma Cooper many times, and if you have followed along, you already know she was a remarkable woman. Standing less than five feet tall, she had a personality and a presence that could fill an entire room.
And she had something else.
An extraordinary ability to say just the right thing at just the right moment.
I know very little about Grandma Cooper’s formal education. I wish I had thought to ask more questions about her childhood, her schooling, and the people who influenced her along the way.
What I do know is that somewhere in her life, someone encouraged her curiosity and helped develop her appreciation for reading.
Or perhaps she discovered that love entirely on her own.
Either way, she never seemed to stop learning.
Reading has always been a passion of mine as well. There is something satisfying about discovering an unfamiliar thought, considering another person’s perspective, or finding words that express something you have felt but never quite knew how to say.
Grandma Cooper had a wonderful talent for remembering those words.
And apparently, for remembering them far better than I did!
Have You Ever Had a Song Stuck in Your Head?
You know the experience.
You hear a familiar song on the radio, perhaps one you haven’t heard in thirty years, and suddenly you find yourself singing it throughout the day.
You may not remember what you had for breakfast yesterday, but somehow every word of that old song comes rolling back without hesitation.
Well, Grandma Cooper’s sayings have a way of doing that to me.
A sentence will suddenly come to mind, and there she is again, speaking as clearly in my memory as though we were sitting together yesterday.
For years, I assumed many of those little expressions belonged entirely to her.
After all, she never introduced them by saying, “Now, according to this famous philosopher…”
She simply spoke.
The words fit the conversation, the circumstances, and whatever lesson she was trying to share.
Lately, I have developed a habit of searching for the origins of those familiar thoughts.
And what an interesting journey that has become.
I have discovered that some of the wisdom I remember hearing from Grandma Cooper has much older roots. Philosophers, poets, writers, and educators had expressed similar thoughts long before I was born.
Does knowing that make Grandma’s words any less meaningful?
Not in the slightest.
In fact, I find it even more remarkable that she carried those thoughts with her, remembered them, and knew when to share them.
Anyone can read a meaningful sentence.
Knowing when someone needs to hear it is another matter entirely.
Happiness Is Right Where You Are
The American poet Walt Whitman wrote:
“Happiness, not in another place but this place… not for another hour, but this hour.”
I cannot read those words without thinking about Grandma Cooper.
She had lived through difficult times. Born in 1908, she witnessed changes that most of us can scarcely imagine. Her lifetime included two world wars, the Great Depression, and the arrival of inventions that transformed everyday living.
She certainly knew that life wasn’t always easy.
Yet I don’t remember her teaching us that happiness was something we had to chase down the road.
She seemed to understand that there was plenty to appreciate right where we were.
I wonder how often we overlook that simple truth.
We spend so much of our lives looking forward to something else.
When the children are grown.
When the house is paid for.
When retirement finally arrives.
When we can afford that special vacation.
There is nothing wrong with having dreams or making plans. Heaven knows Vicky and I have enjoyed planning more than a few adventures ourselves.
But what about today?
What about the morning sunshine coming through the window, a cup of coffee shared with someone you love, or the laughter of family gathered around the dinner table?
Those moments may seem ordinary while they are happening.
Years later, they may be the very memories we wish we could experience just one more time.
Grandma Cooper understood that.
I wish I had understood it a little sooner.
Yesterday Has Memories, Tomorrow Has Possibilities
There is another thought that reminds me of Grandma Cooper’s outlook on life.
The spiritual writer Eckhart Tolle observed:
“The more you are focused on time — past and future — the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.”
I appreciate the sentiment, although I doubt Grandma Cooper would have needed quite so many words to explain it.
She might simply have reminded us to pay attention to what was happening right in front of us.
I have to smile when I think about that.
As children, we were always in a hurry.
In a hurry to finish our chores. In a hurry to go outside. In a hurry to grow older.
And now?
Well, isn’t it interesting how growing older changes our perspective?
At seventy, I occasionally find myself wishing the days would slow down just a little.
I have wonderful memories of yesterday, and there are still plenty of things I hope to experience tomorrow. But neither yesterday nor tomorrow can replace the moments taking place today.
I think about that when Vicky and I are traveling.
Sometimes the most enjoyable part of an adventure isn’t the destination at all. It might be an unexpected stop along the road, a conversation with a stranger, or sitting outside our RV watching the sun settle behind the trees.
We have a saying in our Cooper Shortcut Camping Journey:
We’re not trying to get there first. We’re trying to enjoy getting there.
The more I think about it, the more I realize that philosophy has a little of Grandma Cooper written all over it.
The Most Important Time Is Now
The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy offered another thought worth considering:
“Remember then: there is only one time that is important — Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.”
There is a great deal of wisdom in that statement.
I cannot change what happened yesterday.
Oh, there are certainly things I would do differently if given another opportunity. I suspect most of us could say the same.
But no amount of wishing will change yesterday’s decisions.
Tomorrow is another matter. I can make plans, prepare for possibilities, and hope for the best. Yet tomorrow has never promised to follow my carefully arranged schedule.
Today, however, is here.
Today I can make a telephone call to someone I haven’t spoken with in a while.
I can tell my bride how much I appreciate her.
I can spend a little more time listening and a little less time worrying about what comes next.
And perhaps most importantly, I can recognize that the people sharing this day with me are far more important than the things demanding my attention.
I don’t recall Grandma Cooper ever sitting us down for a formal lesson on the philosophy of time.
She didn’t need to.
Her lessons were usually tucked into ordinary conversations and everyday experiences.
Sometimes they came with a smile.
Occasionally, they came with that unmistakable look that told us she expected us to know better.
Either way, the lesson had a way of staying with us.
A Lifetime Is Made of Little Moments
There is one final quotation I would like to share.
The American artist and educator Corita Kent expressed it beautifully:
“Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed.”
I rather like that.
Think about the memories you treasure most.
Are they always the grand celebrations, expensive vacations, or important milestones?
Some certainly are.
But I suspect many of your favorites are much smaller.
The sound of your mother’s voice calling everyone to supper.
A favorite chair in Grandma’s living room.
The smell of freshly baked bread.
The sound of a screen door slamming on a summer afternoon, followed by someone reminding you not to slam it!
A childhood book that you read so many times the cover began to fall apart.
Or perhaps a few words spoken by someone you loved, words that somehow followed you through the years.
Those are the moments that quietly become the story of our lives.
And sometimes we don’t recognize their importance until the person who shared them is no longer sitting beside us.
What Grandma Cooper Really Taught Me
The more I explore the sayings I remember from Grandma Cooper, the more I appreciate something I hadn’t considered when I was younger.
Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come from inventing something nobody has ever said before.
Sometimes wisdom comes from recognizing the value of words spoken long ago and knowing how to make them meaningful to someone standing in front of you.
I cannot say with certainty that Grandma Cooper read Whitman or Tolstoy. And because she passed away before some of the modern quotations I have shared became widely known, I wouldn’t want to suggest she repeated those particular words.
What I recognize is the familiar lesson behind them.
That was Grandma Cooper.
She had a way of taking a thought that might fill an entire chapter in a book and bringing it into an ordinary family conversation.
She didn’t have to explain where every idea originated.
She was more interested in whether we understood what it meant.
Looking back, I realize how much of my education took place outside a classroom.
Some of it happened around the kitchen table.
Some while traveling with Grandma.
And some during those moments when she said something that seemed unimportant at the time, only to become remarkably meaningful many years later.
I have often wished I could sit down with her again.
Not necessarily to ask anything profound.
Perhaps just to listen.
I would probably have a notebook nearby this time.
And I can almost imagine her looking at me over her glasses, wondering why I was making such a fuss over something she considered perfectly ordinary.
Oh, Grandma, if you only knew.
Final Thoughts
I began this story thinking about childhood television programs, hula hoops, and those wonderful books that carried our imaginations beyond the walls of our bedrooms.
Somewhere along the way, those memories brought me back to Grandma Cooper.
That seems to happen quite often these days.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I am grateful for the books I have read, the places I have visited, and the people who have shared their knowledge with me.
But I am especially grateful for a little woman named Alice Luella Cooper, who probably never imagined that so many years later, her grandson would still be thinking about the things she said.
The words of Whitman, Tolstoy, Tolle, and Corita Kent remind us that life is happening right now.
Grandma Cooper taught me much the same lesson, not through grand speeches, but through the way she lived and the attention she gave to the people around her.
There will always be another chore waiting, another destination on the map, and another reason to put something off until tomorrow.
But the people we love are here today.
The opportunity to make a memory is here today.
And if we are fortunate enough, someone may remember a little something we said long after we are gone.
Perhaps that’s one of the nicest legacies we can leave behind.
Grandma Cooper said a lot of things over the years. I only wish I had listened a little more carefully.
Until our next Cooper Shortcut, take time to enjoy the moment you’re in. Someday, it may be the memory that makes you smile.
The Cooper Shortcut Camping Journey Trio 😊 PlusOne!
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