The Things Gram Put Up With

My family, Whatcom County division, got together Sunday on the anniversary of grandmother Shirley Bailey’s death. We had pizza and ate her beloved chocolate chip cookies and told stories. The theme that emerged was, Wow, she put up with a lot from us.

For instance, the story Dad told was of the time we bought a bunch of yo-yos. He had been playing around with his and gotten quite good at it, so he called his mother-in-law into the living room and proceeded to attempt the “around the world.”

“I had no idea that light was so low,” he swore. “There was glass everywhere. But she never even got mad at me.”

“Oh she wanted to get a new chandelier anyway,” another new relative piped up.

Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. Regardless, my sense is she was too amused by his folly, and ours generally, to be terribly upset.