Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Learning Something New - What's Your Excuse?

This week I have been grannysitting in Pennsylvania. My grandmother lives with my mom, and my mom is out if town. In India, following Buddha's path through India and Nepal. For three weeks. Did I mention that she is 69 years old?

After a week, my grandmother will go to respite care; as the only teacher at HoneyFern, I can't just leave the school for three weeks. When she goes to respite care, she will not have a telephone in her room, which has been really troubling to her for sometime; she gets very anxious, and this is a big move for her.

So my aunt got her a cellphone, and yesterday she made the first cellphone call of her life. We have been practicing making and receiving phone calls; I call her from the kitchen to tell her when dinner is ready; she calls me from the living room to tell me the trash man is here. She has made several mistakes and refuses to let me help her (other than walking her through it once and writing the steps to making and receiving a call); "I need to learn myself," she said, "You can't learn if you don't make mistakes." Did I mention that she is 94 years old?

Go learn something new.

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