Worriers all the way
ON weekdays, my grandmother would stand at the window of our house at 1 pm sharp, keeping her eyes planted on the road unblinkingly. That was the time when famished schoolkids were rushing home. Whether her great-grandchildren — my daughter and son — studying in primary classes were among them was what she was trying to figure out with anxiety writ large on her face. Though the school was only a five-minute walk from the house, she expected them to be home in 10 minutes, allowing for the crowded road. From time to time, she would look at the clock on the wall. If they did not turn up within 10 minutes, she would call her young friend, a woman who lived in our neighbourhood. My wife and I would be away at our workplaces.
She was by nature a worried person, a pessimist. Her young friend, who was well aware of her trait, once told her, “You are not a ‘Varier’ (her surname) but a worrier.” For all her worries and anxieties, she lived to the age of 93 and led a very active and purposeful life almost till the end. As if her trait had rubbed off on him, her eldest son, my uncle, too was as much inclined to worry as she was. And he also had lived for 93 years.
Her younger sister had a different characteristic in that she was not of a worrying nature at all. Even if her youngest son, on whom she showered her love, came home late from school, she did not bother. And, lo and behold, she had a shorter lifespan than her older sibling.
But my grandmother’s youngest sister was worry and anxiety personified. Her matters of concern were as frivolous as frivolousness can be.
“Look,” she told her son when he phoned her one day, “Don’t wear your wedding ring on your right hand while having lunch in the office, where you tend to have a quick meal because of work pressure.”
“Why?” he enquired curiously. “I am worried. When you have food with your beringed hand, you may swallow the ring along with the food”! He burst out into uncontrollable laughter. Can worry be so chronic, he wondered. For all her worries, she lived for 102 years!
People generally think about stress and anxiety being negative concepts. According to a presentation at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association in Chicago in 2019, while stress and anxiety can reach unhealthy levels, psychologists have long known that both are unavoidable — and that they often play a helpful, not harmful, role in our daily lives. Does it mean worries and a long life often go hand in hand? So it seems. Or does it sound perverse refuting the old saying, one swallow doesn’t make a summer?
