Today is my Grandma’s 90th Birthday. Unfortunately, my Grandma died in 2007, but I believe that she’s out in the universe somewhere and happy. She is the Grandma who joined the army as a teenager during WWII, but who was happy as a mother to my dad and his siblings. She is the Grandma who moved her family from the UK to Australia in the 60s, where there was no extended family. But a big one grew around her. She is the Grandma who taught my mum to cook my dad’s favourite foods. She gave my mother a geranium cutting from her house, and from that cutting my mum planted geraniums at many of the family’s properties over the years.
She is the Grandma who looked after my siblings, cousins and me after school. Potatoes and gravy? Yes please. She is the Grandma who, in her later years, would buy goodies from the cart that went around the nursing home and loaded my sister and me up with head scarves, hair clips and chocolates. I love her for all these reasons and more. One thing I’m very grateful for is that she is the Grandma who taught many children to knit, and one of them was me. I even remember her teaching me when I was about six. Thanks, Grandma, you laid the foundations for a passion which I hope I’ll do until I’m 90 and beyond.
