International Women's Day

I guess you could say I'm an International Woman. I'm the product of two grandmothers who lived on opposite sides of the world. They were opposites in almost every way, and they shaped who I am from within.

Firstly, the smiling, bead wearing, white haired energetic one. She saw little of the world. Her whole 96 years were lived in a very small part of the world. She never travelled on a plane. Her train rides were never more than 200 kilometres. Her car rides the same. A couple of bus rides did take her almost 400 kilometres. She worked, she married, and she had 3 children. Her sisters and brothers were her best friends and always lived nearby. 
Her first son was stillborn, but she always talked of him with love and never bitterness. She was so loved by her family, friends, and it seemed sometimes by people she had just met. There was only ever a bright side, and an attitude of get up and go.
Wise, funny, stylish and cheeky. I spoke to her at least once a week until she was on her death bed. I stayed with her the night before I got married. She was one of my dearest friends and even 27 years after her death I look to her for wisdom and inspiration.
I loved her dearly.


Then there is the cat loving, pensive face with years of life etched on her face. She saw a lot of Europe, and at its worst. She lived in three countries and had family in many more. I'm not sure romance was the cause of her marriage or safety. There were 4 children, and one died in her teens. One suffered and was never quite the same, although she lived to old age. Her sons she didn't know where they were for many years due to war. Her baby she last saw when he was 20. 
Yet I don't see bitterness on her face, simply a mind that is so busy stretching out to it's very widest boundaries searching for a connection to those she had loved and lost.
She takes comfort in her cat who leans into her for comfort. The two are as one. 
I see her hands and I see mine, they are the same.
Wise, spiritual, classic and intellectual. 
I never met her. She died 6 months before I was born, in another country. She was awarded an international medal for saving two women during the second world war. I never met her, and she died 57 years ago, and yet I look to her for wisdom and inspiration.
I loved her dearly.


These two grandmothers were so different to one another. They never met. Their children married each other. When the smiler died, her son-in-law said he was the luckiest man on earth because God gave him two mothers. That's not what the stereotypical mother-in-law jokes show is it? It would be interesting to know what the serious one would have thought of her daughter-in-law. 

I feel I am a combination of these two amazing women. I smile, cook, joke, have energy and I get to see my family growing and being happy. I have had sadness but I don't dwell on it, and I can move forward. Yet I sit and contemplate the past and think of those who aren't near me too.  I love cats too by the way.

These two women worked for their communities in different ways. From baking, crafts and committees to risking their lives to save others. Different places, countries and experiences. I believe very deeply they would have loved each other. They would have had respect and admiration. In different times they would have been great friends. They would have loved their shared grandchild too. I feel that deeply.

I am that grandchild. I love my grandmothers and I honour them today on International Women's Day.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Graduation Day

 For the first time this year on Mother's Day I'm the top of the food chain. I'm no longer a daughter, but I am a mother and a grandmother. What a shift in dynamics!  All my life I dreaded Mother's Day. It was Judgement Day in my mind. The day where no matter what I did, had done, or promised to do was not going to be good enough. My faults would be identified and glorified and my redeeming qualities paled into insignificance. The stress levels would rise to obscene levels and I felt physically ill. When I was younger I would attempt to outdo my previous years efforts in generosity. No point. I would over-organise and plan and create. No point.  The years between when my grandmother died and this year were the hardest. Grandma was the most appreciative woman and any efforts were highly rewarded and acknowledged. Her loss was huge not just to me, but I think to everyone who knew her. Even three decades later, people still say she was a star. So this year, I'm the old
Read more

40 years

 Monday 10th October 1983 at 7am, I got on an Ansett flight to Kalgoorlie with 3 suitcases. Alone. Age 17. Not knowing what I was going to, but knowing I didn't couldn't stay where I was. One parent was trying to instill fear of the flight; her fear of being alone, of having a child fail at life, of where the child would be.  She even had a fear of my address being in a street called Nemesis. One parent told me I would always be ok, to go and live my life, and that I was loved. One grandma smiling silently and nodding as I was now in a career path she had followed over 60 years earlier in the Post Office. I never rose to the dizzying heights of Post Mistress that she reached, but she was proud. My first plane flight. My first room in a house not with my parents. My first experience living with others. So many firsts all hit in that one day and the weeks ahead. I tried to work out who I was as all I had done was care for others from the youngest age, and to people please to keep
Read more

My Uncle

 Such a simple phrase that just does not do justice to the amazing man the world lost yesterday. When I was little my Dad talked about his family in Slovakia to me. They didn't have names, he just said "my sisters", "my brother" and "my parents" and so I didn't gain a connection to them, they weren't mine, they were his. He never spoke of my uncle, aunts or grandparents. I find that sad now.  At the same time I understand why he claimed them as his. He  missed them and missed them terribly.   Dad left home as a child really to be a Partisan fighter during World War 2. The family were in a situation that movies are made of and books are written about. Life was so challenging. One of my aunts died just after that war, and for most of it both Dad and my Uncle were presumed dead. I feel my Grandmother's pain to this day. It's called inherited grief. So, my Uncle was a prisoner in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. He survived that - somehow
Read more