GRANDPARENTS I know almost nothing about my grandparents. I have little in common with them. If they were to come back to life I doubt if I could have an adult conversation with them. When I was young I had two grandmothers. Both my grandfathers died before I was born. They are both mysterious shadowy people. I have no concept of them apart from what people have told me in passing. My maternal grandfather was a musician of sorts. He was of Irish decent and played the violin. Quite well as far as I can make out. He had a family band that played at dances in the district. Him and three of his children. An uncle who was from my father’s side of the family told me he once saw him setting out to ride home after playing at a dance. It was a very dark cold night and he would have had a long way to ride his horse in order to get home. When he died the family band stopped performing – although they did still play at family gatherings and all the members still had their party tricks. They did not require much persuasion to get them to perform. But he must have been the driving force. His youngest son carried on the tradition the most and performed in public more than the others. He played several instruments. I discussed this with him in his old age. Why did he do it I asked? I said I believed he loved playing music rather than actually loving music itself. I tested him by playing him extracts of Mozart. I asked why he didn’t progress into classical music. Why did he stop with popular Irish Music? He listened to the Mozart I played him but he did not comment. My paternal grandfather is even more of a shadow. He died in mysterious circumstances. Two people have told me that he committed suicide. I asked his son who I became close to towards the end of his life if this was true and he said no – his father came home one night on his horse in a dreadful state and died soon after. Other people have said he was found dead at the Wangaratta Saleyards. The grandparent I was most close to was my paternal grandmother. I know she loved me and I loved her. When her husband died she had one child who was 14 and one who was 9. She never lived with either of her children again until they were adults and had established their own households. Both children were farmed out to various relatives of her husband and she went to live with various relatives of hers. She was an example of what was then quite common. A widow of no means. Her husband had died when the mortgage barely covered the value of the farm. The farm was sold and she was left with no income or assets whatever. Towards the end of her life she was allocated a housing commission house which she shared with another elderly relative. This was the only house she had after her husband died. Of course I knew her well. Before she got her house she would stay with us from time to time. She had several idiosyncrasies. She would make sure all the blinds in the house were pulled down early every morning on hot days. She followed a ritual when brewing tea. She had trouble sleeping at night. She kept an enamel chamber pot under her bed. My mother never liked her and there was always tension when she lived with us. So she could only stay with us for a short while and then would have to go and live with others. My mother always insisted that her own mother would then come to live with us for the same amount of time. But this only happened once as I remember. When she got her housing commission house I once stayed with her for a week over the Christmas holidays. I remember this as a week of bliss. Absolute bliss. Except for the rough housing commission children who lived in the neighborhood and who all tried to fight me. She got ill and went to hospital seemingly shortly after I stayed with her. She had high blood pressure. Once when we were alone she showed me how to treat high blood pressure. She had a cut on her wrist which was exuding blood. She kept forcing as much blood to come out of the cut as she could. She kept rubbing her hand continuously down her arm to her wrist. This was the way to lessen blood pressure she said. I was the only person she showed this. Then suddenly she was dead. I never saw her again. I once saw an elderly woman coming towards me from up the street and for one wonderful second I thought my grandmother had come back from the dead. I almost ran towards her. The sun was coming through a cloud and shining directly behind this woman as she walked towards me and she did look like my grandmother. Perhaps Jesus did come back from the dead I thought. I thought this for only one second. But my heart did pound. And then went back to disappointment. My maternal grandmother I had less to do with. I was always being warned by my mother not to upset her. I had to behave myself when we visited her. I was surprised if she spoke to me. I can only recall her speaking to me once. She had long hair which she let down at night. She spoke to me as she let down her hair. She suddenly got old and lost weight to the point where she resembled a bird. The last time she visited us she was brought in a car by one of her children. It was a sunny day and the car was parked under a tree in the shade away from the house. Her son got out of the car and came inside. She sat in the car by herself for a while. She was tired. She was not to be disturbed. Maybe she had a short nap. I watched from a distance. She only came inside for a short while. She died soon after. She went into hospital and died within days. When we look at the gravestones of both women we see that both died in their mid 60’s. This is disconcerting. Why did they die so young? Neither seemed to have an official illness. They just got sick and died. My mother always said my fathers mother just gave up but I didn't see this. But would she have been intimate with me if she had? Did they both want to die? Did they will themselves to die?
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