Nan-Made: How a Grandmother Made a Man
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About this ebook
NAN PICKUP TEACHES AND ENTERTAINS IN THIS TWENTY-FIVE LIFE LESSON GUIDE.
The Do-It-Yourself Suggestions at the end of each short story are inspiring. The stories span the fifty years as told by her first born grand-child. These twenty-five tips could help you influence your own children or grand-children and yourself. While you reflect you can be entertained by how Nan coached her grandson. The stories show how Nan used life's simplest and most complex events to shape a young mind and personality. As his greatest coach, her grandson credits her for giving him the tools to succeed as he has. Success has brought him from simple and poor beginnings to being one of Canada's eleven Auditors General. Raised by teen-aged parents, Nan equipped him for a climb upward in Canada. There is a story for everybody in this guide that could help you at home or at work. Examples of lessons taught include: living with integrity; appreciating people; and taking time to love yourself and others.
Michael Pickup, CPA,CA
About the Author:Mr. Pickup is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA,CA) by profession and is currently serving a ten-year terms as Auditor General of Nova Scotia. He has taught at both Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. During twenty-nine years of public service he has been promoting better government through audit. Mr. Pickup has also been sharing his knowledge in Africa and Asia in recent years. He was born and raised on Cape Breton Island, the second child to a teen-aged mother. He overcame early child-hood poverty and incredibly simple beginnings, to become well educated and a successful professional. Mr. Pickup credits many for helping him and recognizes Nan Pickup as having the most influence on his development. Clearly Nan knew what she was doing taking on this project and upward mobility is alive and well in Canada.
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Nan-Made - Michael Pickup, CPA,CA
Table of Contents
Preface
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Act without Hesitation
Build a Day of Rest
Let Mistakes be Selfies
Mind the Pie
Say Yes to the Hair
Share Your Story
Forgive Early, Forgive Often
Have the Last Dance
Take Time for a Time
Make Excuses
Do as Others Want
Keep it Simple and True
Stand on Guard for Thee
Accept Death
Let Favours Cost
Bring Santa Back
Ring a Bell of Gratitude
Hug it Out
Know You Well
Keep Shovelling It
Label with Warning
Sin a Little
Unbuckle Love
Laugh Lots
Sing like an Angel
About the Author
Preface
Nan and I at my chartered accountant
graduation in 1992.
I wrote this book to share with the world a few of the many lessons and approaches to life that I learned from my grandmother. She is affectionately known as Nanny Pickup, born Mary-Ann Currie, but I just call her Nan. The influence she has had on the development of my personality and abilities has benefited me tremendously.
The twenty-five short stories in this book recount how over the past half-century Nan has shared her wisdom with me. She has coached me from the time I was a young boy through to adult-hood. The stories are real-life experiences told through pleasant memories of life with Nan. The stories touch the heart as they are founded on the simplest of life’s events.
Every story has a valuable lesson or takeaway that allows for reflection. At the end of each section, the reader is encouraged to Do-It-Yourself and Learn from Nan. Each of the stories has a short three or four-word title that contains positive statements of reflection. The takeaway principles from Nan’s coaching are equally valuable to both our personal and work lives. Being principles-based stories, the lessons are fitting for all age groups and individual circumstances, as most of them relate to people. Whether you work at home or outside of home, or both as most of us do, the chance to consider Nan’s wise counsel could be useful.
In terms of underlying principles, the stories essentially evolve around the following main themes:
The promotion of gender equality
Including others and appreciating their differences
The importance of living with integrity and trust
Living abalanced life with love, humour, and fun
Exercising judgment, decisiveness, and leadership
I am often asked both personally and professionally where some of my principles, expressions and underlying doctrines have originated. Rarely a week goes by where I don’t reference a lesson I learned from Nan. Quite often the response has been that I should write a book. Be careful what you wish for because here it is—the book you asked for.
Dedication
Nan all dolled up for one of her boy’s wedding.
Nan-Made, my first book, is unsurprisingly dedicated to my grandmother. She is known fondly as Ma, Nanny Pickup, Nanny Mary and, for the sake of this book, just Nan. Those titles depend upon who is addressing her, as she now has five boys, sixteen grandchildren, and fifteen great-grandchildren. Her titles line up by generation, and the hope is she might live to see another title added beyond that. With some of her great-grandchildren now entering their twenties, it is a possibility.
Nan was born on a farm, the oldest of twelve children, and has lived her entire life on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia. She was only forty-two years old when I was born, so I have had the benefit of having her in my life for over fifty years now. She will turn ninety-five on December 12, 2018, the day before I turn fifty-three. We have had a great ride together, and I have been so lucky to have her as a central part of my life. While I have written this book to thank her for her all that I learned from her, I am sure countless others owe her many thanks too.
As a young grandmother, she played a critical role in my growth and development from the youngest age. Even today, we still talk weekly, and she remains wise enough to still seek counsel from. I was born the second child to teenage parents who were focused on surviving and providing the basics to their young family. From the earliest of ages, Nan was my go-to person for many issues.
Nan is remarkable for being a valued and respected daughter, sister, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and more. She also held a full-time health care job, led as a provincial and national union leader, served her community and church, and was a trusted friend to many. Nan is one of those rare people that you never hear one bad word about. She lived remarkably in the most humble and gracious way.
Over the years, Nan and I spent considerable time together, as much as a boy might spend with his mother. In fact, we also lived together alone for six years, which allowed us to become friends. I consider Nan to be a trusted friend beyond her care for me as a grandmother and second mother.
To Nan, I say thank you so much for your key role in giving me the tools to build success both personally and professionally.
Acknowledgements
One of my favourite early childhood pictures
I would like to express sincere thanks to my wide circle of friends for being supportive, honest, and encouraging. Along this path to completion of the book, you offered help. For that, I am grateful. For the most part, I tended to work relatively independently on this project, using it as a chance to reflect and meditate. While I passed on your offers to read, edit, type, and generally assist me, I know that you would have. Knowing that you were there if I needed you provided comfort to get this done. All of you were also encouraging and motivational, which helped push me to get this done in less than a year. Having friends like you made the difference between a goal and a reality.
Each of you are very different people with you own approaches. Yet, you all were consistent in the love and support you gave, and for that I say thanks to: Marcel, Eimer, Tammy, Kim, Jen, Michelle, Britt and Aaron. I hope for the next book you are there as well because it makes a big difference.
Act without Hesitation
An overly tidy and well-groomed seven-year-old boy with perfectly combed blond hair, I was set for my day with Nan. I wore my best clothes, and Nan and I proudly strutted into Archie Nathanson’s discount store in Whitney Pier. I felt safe with my little hand lost ever so gently in Nan’s big hand. Though a working-class woman, she very much had a well-heeled appearance about her that could have said upper class. Nan could look amazing in anything, and today she radiated.
It was 1973, and as a youngster I was amazed at the incredibly large football-field-sized store we found ourselves in. In fairness, it was an old wooden building that smelled old and wouldn’t compete with any pictures I had seen of Macy’s. In this store, you weren’t a customer you were a friend. The welcome greeting was as subtle as the colours and signs that lined the doorway.
This was the biggest five-and-dime store I had been in. It was at least twenty-five years before the arrival of the gigantic box stores, and I had never left Cape Breton. I thought I had died and gone to retail heaven right here in the Pier, dear. This was a well-known neighbourhood in Sydney on our special Cape Breton Island. It was a friendly and hard-working steel town fired by coal and love during the prosperous industrial days of the island.
Every crowded space of that store was jammed from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. There was everything from the most durable of women’s unmentionables through to the latest board game. I was amazed that all of this could fit into one store, and my love of shopping was born.
I was spending a beloved weekend with my Sydney grandparents who lived in this foreign land. For this novice traveller, the twenty-mile distance from my home seemed oceans away. How could I be so far from my seaside village? I wondered. This new land didn’t have the same smell of fresh fish and diesel that I was used to. However, travel was about adaptation, and I set out to do just that.
Our shopping plan was in place and Gramps would dutifully deliver us to where the goods were held for sale. Nan was always up for a trip to the stores, and I had a major mission to achieve. I was setting out to buy a small yet heartfelt gift to give to my mother when I would return home after the weekend away. I would want to thank her for letting me spend the weekend in this new frontier land. Looking back, with three kids under eight years old at the time, and a husband out of town working, my mother’s weekend with one less rug rat was likely gift enough.
I had saved four dollars for my weekend getaway and was going to spend two dollars of it on my mother’s gift. However, before getting in the car to go, Gramps had a surprise for me. He gave me a brand new five-dollar bill which would be mine to spend on top of the special two-dollar bills I had saved. I made a quick decision that this meant I could spend that money on my mother’s gift and get something bigger.
I made my way through countless aisles and sure enough, like a hunter picking its prey, my keen eye found its target. There it was: the most beautiful set of decorative wall fish with more colour than a summer’s pride parade. The fish were encased in the finest plastic, yet I handled them carefully. I was heeding my grandparents’ warnings to exercise caution, as set out in pre-shopping briefings on the drive to the Pier.
I could imagine these fish swimming on my mother’s bright blue kitchen walls that accompanied the green appliances and yellow vinyl floors. Nothing screamed 1970s like