Day 6 It's in the Genes

Today was a day like any other Sunday for a Mormon family. We got up, made ourselves look presentable and went to church. My life has been moulded around the teachings of the church thanks to my grandma Merle Shrimpton joining the church when she was in her early 40's.
Merle was not your typical woman. She too, like me was a mother of 4 daughters.
Born in 1918 Merle witnessed the evolution of horse and carriage to cars and trucks,  outdoor dunnies to fully flushing indoor  toilets, scrubbing boards, to wringer washers through to the washing machines we use today, milk, bread, fruit and veg delivered by horse and kart to today's massive shopping complexes, and of course the huge leaps in technology from the use of ball point pen and paper to computer and then hand held devices...what an amazing time to be alive.  

My grandparents Dating Picture

My grandma also had many talents and career changes in her life. Getting married in the Great Depression my beautiful loved Nanna was one of the first Australian female tailors. Her mother worked for a male garment maker and they live at the back of his shop. She at a young age learnt how to make a suit without a pattern. She made her own wedding dress out of suit fabric because it meant that it was more "serviceable". This was a word I'd hear time and time again when she made practical play clothes for me out of old Ostie dresses that she had found at St Vincent De Paul. My Nan would take the fabric and sew us up some sort of jump suit or church dress if the fabric was pretty enough. When I got married she recovered my hand-me-down lounge with a khaki green fabric telling me it was more "serviceable" than any other fabric. It was a little too Khaki for my liking,  but hey,  we were newly weds and had no money to replace the green baby poop coloured lounge. Gratefully I smiled and thanked her for her beautiful efforts.
As my Nanna got older she became a nurse helping her mother-in-law as she aged and also taking care of her friend who I only knew as Auntie May when she had no other place to go and  was also ageing. My loving grandma taught me to give even when there was not much to give and she always had a fantastic sense of humour.

The wedding Photo of Merle and Alfred Shrimpton

Sadly my grandfather died just after I was married 25 years ago. They were teenage sweet hearts and adored each other. After the loss of her beloved, she took up driving the red sports addition car that her husband had bought just before he passed.  Even though she had the car keys taken off her 30 years earlier due to some miss-haps in her driving skills she was determined this was her moment. My Pop, I am sure,  would have rolled in his grave had he known...or perhaps he was laughing at her looking down from heaven as she took to the streets in her lipstick red shiny machine. Nanna decided she would make the best of anything that came her way. Although she pined to be with her lover she smiled every day. 

This woman knew the value of a good laugh and just having her In the room even if she was asleep on the lounge made people around her smile (often because of the foreign noises that would come out of her petite body as she snoozed). One of the funniest memories I have of her was when my sister captured her on film just a few weeks before she left us . Nanna was wheel chair bound and started manoeuvring it towards an empty bucket that lay on the ground in front of her. She used her good leg to trying to strike the container, her voice can be heard  saying..."just let me die I'm trying to kick the bucket!"..then the film captured her looking around at our reaction and her laughing at us as our eyes widened not knowing if she was joking or being a little serious, her cackle filling the air with just pure joy at her own silliness.That's the way she lived...finding the joy in every moment. 

 When she was 90 this little old kitty decided she would pose with a real tiger to capture her momentous moment.By the age of 96 my Grannie had a Facebook page...and by the age of 97 this hip and happening woman had a blog. My Nan was almost jumping out of her nursing chair telling me that 80 people had read about her life in one post she had written overnight. Coming from a woman who had moving boxes full of her diaries and poems  that she had written about her life,  she had finally found a technology that gave her life significance and meaning because people could read her words straight away. She had found a medium to share her experiences even though she was house bound due to a stroke, this ageing lady had found a way she could have a social impact on not just her need for interactions with others but also a way she could teach others through her example, just as she had done throughout her life. In the last year of her life she made me promise her that I would start a blog. I did start that blog but life got in the way...

I like my Nanny was also a diary writer. 

Just last week my daughters were to rummaging through the boxes in the shed and found my diary collections...lots of giggles and teasing came in my direction as they read about all the past boys I crushed on. They finally came to the diary entries about my blind man. They noticed that these entries were not written in the diary but they were glued in on other paper that I had written on. Being the snooping teenagers they asked why I didn't write about Dad directly into the book...I had so many little teenage heart breaks that I was convinced that it was the bad luck diary that made the boy I had just written about break my heart...and I wasn't going to risk that with this gorgeous man. Not wanting to jinx anything I recorded the whole love affair on random prices of paper and glued them into the said diary after we got married.

So when you ask me why do I want to record my life with my blind man, as asked by my sister yesterday...my reply is because it's part of my DNA, my Grandmother asked me to do it...she felt a real need to give even after she was gone and I believe I am fulfilling her wish and in doing so connecting with others and validating their struggles by sharing my own and in the process teaching others how we have made the best of a blessed life even if it's not perfect.

My Grandmother Merle and my 4 daughters with me visiting her just before she passed away last year. See even in her 98th year she had a twinkling smile