Pearls Among Us

A very long time ago, my friend and I were on our way to some event but she, the driver, asked if I wouldn't mind stopping for a bit. She wanted to check up on her grandmother who lived nearby. When we arrived, she asked if I would like to meet the woman. I did. We went into the front garden of a pleasant house and took the side path to the back. Down a few steps, there was a door. It was a "basement suite". The door opened and an elderly lady smiled us in. The tiny apartment was tidy and although it had its little treasures here and there, none of them were of the expensive sort. Soon the grandmother had the kettle on for tea. Even though we were due soon at our other locale, we stayed to enjoy it and the home-made cookies. I felt it a revelation to have this experience. I thought there must be a host of people in the city living just like this after a lifetime of contributing to it. Theirs were ordinary lives. Like pearls that never see the surface, they have a certain beauty that no one knows or ever shall.  A life drawing to its close with perhaps no great accomplishments, has also perhaps, no regrets. It was time to go. Putting on her sweater, the lady insisted on picking a few flowers to give us. She said she had permission. As we drove off, I began to think of the grandmother as one of so many "pearls" we seldom consider. The woman was a nurse who had done duty in the armed forces during World War Two. She met her husband there, and when the war was over, they came home and lived and worked all of their lives in the same city in which they were born. They had a house but when their family grew up, they sold it and moved into a smaller rental. They were able, only thus, to retire, using the proceeds. Along the way, they had done a bit of travelling in their car and enjoyed their grandchildren when their own children went on holidays.  Both the lady and her husband lived a good, long life and when her husband passed on, the grandmother turned down offers to live with her children. She wanted to remain independent. Her funds had dwindled markedly and her lifestyle was humble, but she coped. Like a pearl, she had begun strong like the tiny grain of sand inside an oyster shell.  Slowly her life grew, year by year, quietly layer by layer, every event marking the days. The couple had survived the Great Depression, wartime with its rationing and loss of life, the costs of rearing children who all became rather successful. The old couple's lives were gentle like a pearl, lustrous and satisfying, but not that of a sparkling diamond. They didn't need, or know, riches:  annual holidays on tropical islands or driving foreign cars or owning big houses or going first class anywhere. They were practical people who always for their childrens' sake, kept their "global footprints" small and few. No one writes biographies about this kind, but memories of the little white haired lady, make me wonder how many "pearls" there are out there, people alone and coping in these expensive times, people who made this country what it is,and ask for nothing in return.