Reflecting on wisdom
The person that I identify as being wise is my grandmother. She passed away several years ago and her wisdom is sorely missed. My grandmother was, basically, the glue that held the entire family together. Even today, the family sticks together, but, there seems to be some element missing from the picture. Grandmother possessed several characteristics of wisdom. Creativity was one of the characteristics that I enjoyed the most. She never had a lot of money, yet, she always found a way to get the things she needed, even if it meant finding something old and broken down and restoring it to an almost new appearance. Her creativity always amazed me as a child. When I needed an idea for something I could always count on her.
I guess you could say that she had a natural curiosity about things because she would always enjoy trying new things with me and my cousins. In the spring we would all help her to prepare her garden (which she grew every year). Grandmother wasn’t happy with just your traditional garden, she always added some special touches to it that made it fun for us. For instance, she would designate a small patch for each one of us so that we could plant whatever we wanted. It was always exciting to see who’s patch would turn out the best. Grandmother always praised us all for doing a good job no matter how things turned out.
My grandmother was also one of the most open-minded people I have ever known. The reason she was so good at keeping the family strong was because of her open-mindedness. When difficult choices had to be made, she would never make snap decisions. She would always think things over before giving an answer for anything. She was an expert at defusing quarrels between individuals in the family as well.
I think that her love of learning is what made her so good at fixing and restoring things. As far as I know she never had any training so I have to assume that she learned it all through trial and error. I guess back when she was growing up, a love of learning would have been a valuable attributed to possess because their survival in those days depended on what they knew and how they did it.
My Grandmother always provided me with wise counsel as well. For this reason I would say that she also possessed the strength of perspective. There were always different people from all around the community we grew up in that came to her when they had problems or needed advice. They knew that she would provide them with an unbiased opinion on whatever the topic was. I never knew her