My husband’s grandparents are quintessential Latter-day Saints. Descended from plain-crossing pioneers, they had seven children over aproximately twenty-one years. My mother-in-law was their first child. When my husband, the first grandchild was born, he was only four years younger than his youngest aunt. Since this was about the same spacing they had between the rest of their kids, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when Grandma told me at our first meeting that my husband “was really her son.”
At the time, I thought she was joking, but after only spending a little while with their family as we dated, it became obvious she meant it. Of course, my mother-in-law raised her family only a short distance away, and my husband took part in all of their family activities. Only one of his uncles was married by the time he was born; he remembers most of them serving missions; he was there as most of them dated their wives-to-be (husbands-to-be for his young aunt). I suppose it was only natural that Grandma consider him her sixth son.
Grandma is by no means a person who considers herself ‘old’, despite being nearly 70. In her middle age, she raced cars and hung out with Dale Earnheart. My husband loves to tell about how she outran a Texas police officer who challenged her to a race. Out in the flat area where she could see the black and white in the distance, he still clocked her at 140 in a 65 – after she had massively decelerated. Apparently impressed by her car (which he didn’t realize had a specially built racing engine), he wrote her two tickets. One was for 99 so she wouldn’t have to go jail, and the other was for 140. Then he challenged her to a race. If he caught up with her, she would go to jail; if not, she was free to go with the smaller ticket.
She didn’t go to jail.
Knowing all of this, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by what happened not long after we were married. Grandma and Grandpa were in their early-to-mid-sixties at the time, and we were going out to dinner with them. Now, they don’t look decrepit by any means, but they did look about their age.
As we waited at the restaurant for my inlaws to arrive, Grandma gave a little giggle. We asked what was so funny.
“Well,” she said, “I was just thinking about how the people in the restaurant must think we look too young to be your grandparents. But then I realized that they wouldn’t even think we were your parents!”
Now that, folks, is how you stay young at heart.
Related Articles:
Top Ten Ways to Keep Up With the Smith/Young/Kimballs
Top 10 Ways You Know Your Kids Are Learning the Gospel
Top 8 Ways To Tell Your Kids Don’t “Get” The Gospel