This photograph is of my maternal grandmother Zeata and I in her dahlia garden. I have it on my fridge and was shocked to realise yesterday that when this photograph was taken, she was younger than I am now. I must have been about four years old here.
Zeata was born in 1901 (during the Second Anglo-Boer War), when average life expectancy was between 45 and 53. A lot of that was due to infant mortality and death in childbirth, infectious diseases, and lack of vaccines. But she also lived through the Spanish Flu, World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. She was widowed young and had to support four children. I am imagining that her hard life showed on her face.
She died in a fire at the age of 79, having never had an inside toilet or bathroom. She was never sorry for herself and never showed that she was worried about anything – not to her ten grandchildren anyway. She was a strong woman, with a great sense of humour. She taught me to play the piano (badly), how to mend things, how to darn hankies and socks, how to sew, how to knit and crochet. She had an infectious giggle, as do I (or so I have been told). She loved her flower garden, baking, and her canaries.
I often think of her and wonder how she made it through the seemingly never-ending global crises of her time. Particularly now that we have had climate change, rapid digitalisation, the Covid pandemic, the Russo-Ukraine war, the war in Iran, Israel/Palestine and general geopolitical chaos. Luckily for her mental health, she was not updated every second about every drama in the world. She had a weekly newspaper and her radio, no television.
I have coped, probably as she did, by cherishing and appreciating everyday small pleasures. A nice cup of tea, a good book, my favourite movie, rewatching beloved films and television series. She told me once that as long as you have a roof over your head, food in your tummy, and a bed to sleep in, you should feel very very lucky. I have also turned off almost all my push notifications and updates, checking in just once or twice a year. I read a lot and thus escape into other worlds. I cuddle my cats. I cherish that, for now, my body doesn’t hurt. I have a job I love. I enjoy blogging.
How do you cheer yourself up when things around you seem overwhelming?
Your grandmother sounds like me: a hard life but still enough love and kindness for her children and grandchildren. She taught me to crochet and I made many things for her. She also went through the civil war in Spain, fled because she was not on Franco’s side and then moved to the North of France in 1939…
I try and make something. In 2016 when I felt particularly impotent in the face of political change and deaths I created #CheeryUppy, sharing on twitter etc and forced myself to think of, share and practice something simple for each lettof the alphabet. It made me feel i was putting positivity into the universe. Might be time for me to revisit!