| In memoriam, though I will never forget |
 In memoriam, though I will never forget
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May. 12th, 2009 @ 09:33 pm 
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So here's the thing: I'm having a difficult day, and a very difficult evening. My brother-out-law has, with some difficulty, been getting me through it... and then I picked up a couple of photos I'd printed out, and was reminded of something.
Someone.
My grandmother.
My grandmother was the most amazing woman I've ever met. She was wonderful - kind, Christian in the best possible - and only the best possible - sense of that word. Generous of spirit, and indomitable - she went back to university in her seventies and got a B.A. in Art History, after which she volunteered at the Art Gallery while she made an approach to doing postgraduate work. She delivered Meals on Wheels and went to aerobics. She took little old ladies on outings - little old ladies who were younger than she was. She was in her 80s before illness slowed her down.
She died on the 7th of September, 2001, a few weeks before her 85th birthday.
My grandmother is my role model, my inspiration, everything I want to be. She was and remains my greatest hero.
Two photos of her below the cut. Both were taken during the Second World War, when she was serving in Egypt. She met my grandfather there - he caught shrapnel in his thigh, and they met while he was recovering. Then he went back to the front. They married in Cairo after the war - both in uniform.
The first is of Grandmother and a man called Taki. All I know of Taki is this: they shared the office that is visible in the background (behind the truck she called her "station wagon"), and he apparently loved having his picture taken.
The second is of Grandmother and three of the Women's Auxiliary Ambulance Service - "WAUSies". My grandmother is the one on the left. The other women are recorded as "Bina, Tubby and Kay".
My grandmother was a farm girl from the north of Scotland, thousands of miles from home. I don't know whether this photo was taken before or after she learned that her baby brother, an RAF fighter pilot, had been shot down and killed in France; she visited his grave there in 1965.
I miss her deeply.
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These are lovely photos - how wonderful to have a record of what your grandmother did during the war, she was evidently a woman of considerable life and substance. My nan died recently, prompting the (re)discovery of a number of old photos, and I wish very much I'd asked her about them when I had the chance.
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| From: | ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) sami |
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May 13th, 2009 04:50 am (UTC) |
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I know what you mean. I really don't know that much about Grandmother's experiences - only a tiny handful of stories - but I'm so very deeply glad I have those, and that I made a point of getting hold of some of my family's photos now, while I can still ask my mother about them.
You have my deepest sympathies for the loss of your nan. As I suspect you can tell, I know how much it hurts.
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| From: | quiara |
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May 13th, 2009 04:10 am (UTC) |
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Those pictures are amazing. She sounds like a really incredible woman.
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| From: | sami |
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May 13th, 2009 04:54 am (UTC) |
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She was. She had such strength about her - going back to university for her B.A. was something she did after she kicked cancer in the face (she almost died, but almost wasn't going to slow her down any).
It runs in her line of my family - I think her father was the one who, to his own great annoyance, sprained his ankle falling off the greenhouse roof... at 93. (I know it was her father who considered the electric blanket the greatest invention in the history of civilisation, but then, he lived in a very old farmhouse in the far north of Scotland...)
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| From: | elaran |
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May 13th, 2009 06:15 am (UTC) |
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wow, she sounds awesomecool! :)
What an awesome lady. My grandmother died in the spring; I miss her a lot, too.
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