I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with my 104-year-old grandmother.  Her health had been on the decline over the past several weeks and we were told that she likely wouldn’t be with us much longer.  I learned just a few hours ago that she had passed.

She was less than 100 days from her 105th birthday.  Let that sink in:  that’s almost 39,000 days! And, the next time that my kids tell me on a family trip that “it’s going to take a million hours to get there,” I’ll remind them that grandma lived close to that long.

As my family celebrates the life of my grandmother, it made me think of all that she’s been through – good and bad – and how much life has changed since she was born in 1915.

In 1915, Woodrow Wilson was President.  That was 18 presidents ago!  The average wage in the United States was 33 cents an hour, with the average worker earning less than $700 a year. That’s less than two dollars a day. The average life expectancy in the United States was only 52 years.There were less that 2.5 million cars in the entire country and the average cost of a car was over $2,000.  It cost you 15 cents a gallon to fill your gas tank.A loaf of bread cost 7 cents. A dozen eggs cost 34 cents. A quart of milk cost 9 cents.  Coffee was 30 cents per pound.

The American flag had only 48 stars. There was no Mother’s Day. 15% of the adults in the United States couldn’t read or write. Less than 9% of adults had graduated high school.

When my grandma was born in 1915, World War I was beginning its second full year – and it ended before her 3rd birthday. 22 million people were killed. Later in 1918, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and 50 million people die from it in just two years.

When she was 14, the Great Depression began. Unemployment was 25%, global GDP dropped 27%. That lasted more than four years. The country – and the world economy – nearly collapsed.

When she turned 24, World War II began. It ended by her 30^th birthday – with another 75 million people killed as a result.

Two world wars and a global pandemic – all before the age of 30.

Just before she turned 35, the Korean War began – and another five million perish. Five years later, the Vietnam War begins – and it doesn’t end for 20 years. Four million people die in that conflict. Her son, and many of his friends, were drafted into that conflict.

As she approached 47 years old, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place. How scary that must have been to see that play out and wonder what could happen.

When she turned 60, the Vietnam War finally ended. I was born the previous year.

I think that I’ve been through a lot of “stuff.” I can think back through political conflicts that resulted in war that I read about or saw on the news.  I watched the first Gulf War on TV in the early 1990’s (what a change from grandma’s time!) At times, things hit close to home: my brother joined the Army to fight for his country in the second Gulf War.  That was scary.  We’re living through another global pandemic, as we speak – which can be scary at times.

But when I think about my life as compared to hers – and that of her generation – I’m not even in the same hemisphere. I’ve lived a care-free, comfortable life comparably speaking.

Muhammad Ali (who was born when my grandma was 27 – and died when she was 90) said “looking at life from a different perspective makes you realize that it’s not the deer that is crossing the road, rather it’s the road that is crossing the forest.” There’s so much truth to unpack there – and it’s a good reminder that a little perspective is what we all need from time to time.

When I think of all that I’ve been through in my life as I sit in the air-conditioning, sipping my mocha latte and read Google sports stats on my MacBook Pro, I’ll remember that I have NOTHING on grandma and the G.I. Generation.

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