Grandparents to me are super beings, people who will always outshine everyone else. I mean it… I didn’t have two sets of them, I only had two, but they sure had double the amount of special and that had me never wanting another pair to complete “me”.
Round about this time last year I wrote a note for each of my grandparents on my facebook page as a tribute to them.
This year I’ve decided to do something a little different.
I’m a sucker for family history, little anecdotes, little bits and pieces that make up my ancestry.So when I spent holidays at my grandparents home as I grew up they would tell the most amazing stories.
I will never forget sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea or sitting on the veranda staring up at the stars and listening to my grandparents’ stories.
I wish that I had recorded these moments so my children could hear the stories as just as they were told to me.
I laughed hysterically when I heard about Gran’s account of the snake in the outhouse. I could imagine a “Charlie Chaplin” or “Marx Brothers” movie reel of my Gran’s brother running out of the outhouse with his pants around his ankles.
I always knew my Gran loved apples. On one of these “story” evenings I heard how she and her friend had filled the front of their dresses with so many apples that they almost couldn’t make their getaway.
When I felt sad I think of the one where my Gran was cheered up by her father, he’d tell her that the “prr-prr” would be visiting soon. (meaning my Gramps arriving on his motorbike)
I’ll never forget her telling me that on the day I was born there was one blossom on the peach tree. She said this must have been my tree because it was the same tree my mom fell out of when she was born. Little quotes like these make me smile at her memory. They keep her alive for me and in me.
Today I will most probably find one bloom on my frangipani or bougainvillea, and that will be my sign that she’s still looking in from time to time. It’s a perfect bloom sent from heaven on her special day.
I wish I could write better so I could illustrate these stories in colour like she would.
There are so many little bits and pieces that I can treasure. Moments spent together, walking to the shops or when she’d fetch me at primary school in the afternoon. Mornings of shopping trips, and holidays together. We’d always have something to chat about, she always had some good advice, or a special way of making you feel better. She was talented in so many ways, she could sew, knit, crochet, cook and bake and I am pleased that she passed some of her knowledge over to me.
Without her I would never have been the person I am today.
I said it at her memorial and I believe it more today. The Lord gained a beautiful angel. I was fortunate to experience the angel in my Gran when she was alive. I still feel her presence every day in her angel form, now with the wings that were invisible while she was alive.
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ReplyDeleteDone off my BB!