Oma Lena
My grandmother was a very kind person, always willing to help. Talking with her always helped to collect one’s thoughts. She read a lot, a thing I love to do as well, and therefore something we could talk about. She still had lots of children books from when my was little, and I would always hurry up the stairs to read them. When I look back it seems that whenever we visited my grandparents there always were family and friends in the house. The conversations were about all kinds of different subjects and sometimes even got a bit out of hand. That’s when my grandmother came in and made sure that peace was kept. I divided my time between romping around with my nephews and talking with the grown-ups. I remember the exiting atmosphere and the comfortable ambiance. An important part of that was created by my grandmother, always making sure everybody was ok, providing a drink and a bite and meanwhile participating in the conversation. My grandmother was very concerned for her loved ones, which she expressed through warnings, but often more subtly by cutting out newspaper articles of frightening events and making sure you saw them. This was sometimes a good trigger for rebelliousness from the side of the grandchildren! However she did the same for interesting subjects; a very attentive activity that underlined her interest in me. It is a habit that I adopted. I feel that in this digital era, some more analogue contact could do no harm! And although my friends call me ‘granny’ when I put some stuff down their mail box, I know they like it. My grandmother often did creative projects with us grandchildren. Not so much painting, but folding origami creatures and, wait now I know, folding muizentrappetjes (a sort of ministaircase for a mouse). They served as arms for paper puppets and gave drawings a three dimensional impact. It makes you wonder what we will do with our grandchildren. Play videogames and watch Sex and the City with them? Or dig up all the things we did with our grandmothers?
Flora van Gaalen
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