GrandMa is turning 97 next today. Since I'm working12319832761478946 hours a day, we baked a cake and made persimmon ice cream on Sunday to have a bit of a birthday celebration.
She has not had a good week - I think in a couple weeks or so, unless she gets better, she will no longer be able to climb stairs. I've been trying to convince the Panther that Granny needs to move in with my parents and that we can't wait any longer, but she... I dunno. Says that Granny is happy to live on her own. True I guess, but I'm really afraid she'll fall and end her days alone at the hospital, scared and abandoned (you can't visit anyone in hospitals right now, and those who check in at her age rarely check out these days).
On a different note, as Granny becomes more and more erratic, we were looking for some papers a couple weeks ago, and we found a notebook scribbled by GrandFather.
GrandFather has literally looked after me for a long time, because I did not attend kindergarden or any kind of nursery before I started school at 6. I loved him dearly, he was a great man, born 1917, capable, intelligent even though he didn't go much to school, and mostly he was good and kind.
The notebook turned out to be a story of his youth, he wrote in 2001. Despite all the difficulties, most of it transmits a pure joy of having lived a life fulfilled with satisfaction for his achievements. I also love how we wrote about GrandMa: in a tender way that is so full of respect it borders on shyness. It felt like reading "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café", one of my favourite books.
The only sad part is really about him dating a girl born out of marriage when he was a teenager, and blaming himself on having wronged her by dating her because he knew he could not have introduced her to his family or marry her since she didn't have a father - how sad really.
I spent a night reading through his memories and shed a few tears - I'm so grateful at having found this, at having received this peace of memory. It was like being granted another day to spend with him, 14 years after he passed away.
