My grandmother influenced my life in more ways than one. She taught me how to choose good recipes and how to follow them, she showed me how to clean a house and keep it in order and she showed me how to stay clutter free.

        The Physical and Mental

Staying clutter free is more than just our ability to keep from collecting too much stuff so that we are forced to rent a storage unit. It is also about staying chaos free in our minds and leaving room for clear-headed thinking.  

Over the years I got up close and personal to my grandmother. In my early teens, I lived with her for a short stint and observed her daily encounters with people. Favoritism, unforgiveness or arrogance did not cross her mind, consume her thinking or influence her priority of being kind, considerate and respectful to everyone.  

Grandma had sixteen grandchildren and treated each of us with equality. Neither the boys nor the girls were favored. When filling glasses of Kool-Aid, all the glasses were the same size and held the same amount. The older cousins did not get more and neither did the younger cousins get less. Also, when visiting Grandma, everyone was always given the same invitation to grab a cookie from the cookie jar. Equal sized glasses and equal invitation to the cookie jar were seemingly small acts, but memorable ones. It left the impression that no one was exempt from the good that Grandma had to give. 

Concerning forgiveness, I remember a particularly difficult incident that Grandma had with one friend of hers.  Fanchon was a rich woman who lived all alone. She had no family near-by and because she was one of grandma’s neighbors, grandma befriended her. 

But Fanchon spread a rumor about Grandma and of course the rumor spread among Grandma’s friends. I remember overhearing Grandma attempting to straighten out the information with someone over the phone. She wasn’t mad about it, but it did make her sad. She never held a grudge against Fanchon, she just let the misdeed go by the wayside. 

Although Grandma was an excellent homemaker, she never prided herself in her skill.  And though my mother was not a very good homemaker, Grandma never held that against her. Instead, whenever possible, Grandma came over to our house to help however she could. Even when we moved far away from her, Grandma still made the trip by bus just to boost Mom’s morale and help her put the house in order. 

Why bother eliminating the clutter? Not only is it a good idea to keep our belongings down to a minimum, keeping our mind free from grudges, pride, or favoritism will keep us open to receiving the goodness from life.