I'd say my maternal grandmother had "grit". See grandmother lost her husband when my mom was only 2 years old. She raised 7 kids on her own cleaning house for a man who owned a large peach orchard in our town. My mom, who was the youngest says that they as children never knew they were "poor". My grandmother wouldn't take handouts from anyone.
Her oldest daughter (my aunt) became deaf at the age of 3 because of an incident with thunder. After raising all 7 kids, my deaf aunt lived with my grandmother until my aunt died at the age of 70+. Earlier, this same daughter was "raped" by a deaf man. The families got together and they were "married" but never lived together. Back then, this was the thing to do. My aunt had a son who was perfectly normal. Guess what? My grandmother raised him too.
She was a Christian all of her life and was at church every time the doors opened. I still remember spending the night with her, watching her let down her waist-length silver hair from it's braid, combing it out, and then settling back to read the Bible and pray every night before she went to sleep. We'd sleep under this big old fan with razor sharp blades; I don't think they even make them anymore.
She practically raised me too (well not really) but I was over at her house nearly ever weekend. I was in the hospital when I was a baby running a dangerously high fever with pneumonia. Back then, they took a child and dipped them in a bathtub of alcohol and ice to get the fever down. My grandmother saw what they were doing, ran in there and yanked me out of the tub declaring, "Stop! You're going to kill that baby!" She refused to let them continue.
Grandmother eventually became senile and had to be put into a nursing home at the end of her life. She died at the age of 96. If there was ever anyone that I know without a doubt went to heaven, it was her. I don't think she ever did wrong in her life. She was just a good woman, with a lot of grit.
