This weekend past I was helping to pack up the home of my two remaining grandparents, who are still both with us, but suddenly living in nursing homes. It was very weird. The main part of my mind seems to be doing a fantastic job of pretending like the whole thing isn't happening, so for the most part it was like doing any old job. But every now and then I'd see something that would remind me of something and then ... :(
Anyway, I thought I would write down a few of the random things I noticed or thought about or remembered while I was there, so I could be sure they wouldn’t be forgotten:
- I was cleaning out my grandmother’s desk and found the souvenir booklets (I don't know exactly what you call them) from our various first communions, graduations from year six/high school/university, etc - and not just the cousins, also the aunties, my uncle, my grandmother’s sons-in-law - she's kept them all all this time.
- Going through my grandmother’s desk, I was struck by all the things she has been keeping busy with, even in recent years when she was in her eighties - art exhibitions, committees, language classes, computer classes. And letters and cards, both written and received.
- The fly screens on the windows have little iron lace decorations in the corners and are hinged with a latch on the inside so you can easily open them out away from the house for cleaning.
- I think my favourite room in the house is the front one which used to be my mother’s bedroom, and where I studied for my HSC and stayed whenever I was keeping my grandmother company if my grandfather was away. I loved the desk in the bay window, the little candle-shaped electric lights over the beds, the small stained-glass window in the southern wall and most of all the plumbed-in sink which I always thought was VERY sophisticated and luxurious. I remember spending hours looking at the glass wishing-well which used to sit on the cupboard in that room, and the hand mirror and the "... wisdom is knowing the difference" sign which sat along with it.
- I love the smell of the garage, and its dusty sootyness.
- I never knew before that our great-great-great (I think) grandfather went to the first world war.
- I loved the sounds of the doorbell and the clock on the mantelpiece whose machinery you could hear whirring as it got ready to strike the hour and half hour.
- I loved the smell of the silver-penny tree which hung over the backyard and I remember spending hours just looking at the birds of paradise flowers on the south fence.
- I remember the smell of my grandmother’s baking cupboard - I always loved that jar she had of those little metallic balls for putting on top of cakes and biscuits. They seemed mysterious and luxurious at the same time. I remember learning how to make sweets out of melted butter and brown sugar which we would tie up in scraps of greaseproof paper so that they they looked like lollies. I remember learning how to make upside-down cake and chicken schnitzel and of course the Christmas pudding.
- I love the fact that you go out the front door to the little portico with the metal lacework gates. Having to get the key out of the drawer on the portico and unlock the gates made me feel rather as if we were in the abbey in the Sound of Music.
- I remember having baths in the pink bathroom when I was very small and my grandmother putting one or two of those small, scented oil balls into the water. I remember being fascinated by them and watching them as the innards finally found their way into the water, making it smell like roses, and then I would pick up the jellylike capsule and make sure all the scented oil had been squeezed out before playing with it, enjoying the oozy feel of it. I always thought having a bath at Granny and Grandpa's in winter and then being able to get dry underneath the heater over the bathroom mirror was VERY civilised.
I know this isn't a very happy post, but I wanted to record these things and to share even this sad and difficult experience, because even if this ending of this long and happy chapter, the one marked “My Grandparents and Their Home” feels very sad, all the memories which came out of the chapter are part of our family's story and so very precious.