My grandmother would have been 95 today. She had her quirks, she wasn’t a good cook, she didn’t knit or sew. She did have a brief enthusiasm for painting water colours in the 1970s and went to every producution of our local theatre company until she became ill.
She was the daughter of Finn immigrants, graduated highschool and became a book keeper. She married my Grandfather who was in the RAF in 1940 and became a war widow 11 months after she married. (My dad was born 43 weeks after her marriage) She only had the one son, my father. She moved back in with her mother, raised a son as a single mom in the 1940s and 1950s. Eventually she remarried, a Captain on the laker boats and had a pretty good life. She and grandpa travelled, vacationed in Arizona, had a summer camp (cottage) mear the city.
She had two grandchildren, me and my brother. She spoiled us as rotten as my parents would let her. No Christmas or birthday was complete until grandma had overspent. I was the daughter she never had and she lavished all her cravings to by lacy pink things upon me.
Alzheimers took her mind away a few years before he passed away in 2008. I was holding her hand when she took her final breaths. I have no issues with how she died. I cried at her funeral, but mostly held it together for Dad. I then proceeded to bawl for a week. My grieving isn’t blocked or delayed, I just miss her today, thats all. I didnt cry on her birthday in 2009 or last year, but today I’m ready to tear up at the slightest thing.
I went and bought a birthday cake and ate it on her good china. It helps, but I miss my Grandma.
I was just thinking, my son is 7 and didn’t really know my Grandma, but he was happy to the cake with me. I was thinking how if I had a daughter, I could have had a tea party with her and her dolls and teddy bears. Im only having the one child… a son. Just like Grandma.
Huh. I wonder if I will spoil any furture granddaughters and buy them pink frilly things. Is this how it begins?
Well, even if you had a 7YO daughter instead of a 7YO son, there’s no guarantee she would have wanted a tea party with dolls and teddy bears. By the time mudgirl was 7, she was longing for a pet snake, and preferred celebrating birthdays at bowling alleys or roller skating rinks.
I’m sorry you’re feeling so sad right now, but I think it’s super-cool that you have such great memories of your grandma!
I will have to scan some pics of her. One I can’t scan but might try taking a picture of, is her wedding portrait with my bio-Grandfather, the RAF pilot. She looked a bit like me. He looks exactly like a 1939/40 version of my father.
I meant to take a picture of the cake on her cake plate with the tea cups out for my little tea. But I forgot my camera at home. (I went over to Mom and Dad’s …although the china is “mine” it lives at Mom and Dad’s. They are in Australia right now.Which may be why I feel this way, last year he was just a phone call away on Feb 17th)
My son finally got it later tonight, he said “Oh, did she do fun things with you like Nana and Papa do with me?” Yes, I told him. She took me on trips, and we did odd crafts like pressing flowers and sticking them on candles, and weird little Rorschach test blobby paintings, and stuff. She was fastidiously neat but when it came to doing crafts we got messy and it was ok.
Also she made me ice cream sundaes she called “Concoctions” with chopped nuts, marachino cherries bananas and … creme de menthe sauce. Well you know, a couple of table spoons poured over the top of everything. Until my dad found out and had a coniption fit.
