Ode to my grandmother

Family history is addictive and the need to do one more search, check one more database, or one more newspaper is compelling. Going back into that dim past to follow the footprints the ancestors left behind is like walking through a fog but we family historians do it joyfully. The further back we go the more challenging and exciting it can get.

The only thing is that there are people closer to us such as grandparents whose lives are just as important, who have stories that are just as compelling. I have found that it is easy to forget this as I have engaged in those holy grail searches, particularly as I love a good rabbit hole! In celebration of recent ancestors, I dug out an old and very long poem that I wrote about my grandmother Kath Shea (nee McKoy) in the year before her death in 1996.

My no waste all giving grandma

for whom everything has a place and a purpose

Who finds value in the tiniest thing

who recycled before anyone thought of recycling

Everything has a use from celery tops for the soup

to cuttings from a bunch of flowers

She saves everything from this sacred earth

and has spent much of her life in a state of constant collection

It’s true she’s a hoarder but that’s all gone now

Given to the family or auction houses

The rooms were cleaned out and the rats sent packing

Now what has she got but an empty hallway

that seems twice as wide as it used to be

and a dismantled garden for the want of an able-bodied lover

She still treasures her garden but cannot care for it

Even so the roses and the lilacs still

bloom and bloom their colour and love

I think they represent her inner heart

No one could love the earth garden so

and not be a passionate loving soul

She’s very poor but rich in offerings

I should have a riotous garden by now

had I taken proper care of all that she gave me

We all would because she has never stopped thinking and giving

If she doesn’t own much it’s because she never kept it

she hoarded and then gave her hoardings to us

Her children made miserable by the clutter

happy to see the back of it

and now she is relieved of her favourite pastimes

collecting her clutter and growing her garden

She’s a little shabby of body but alive of mind

Waiting in this half empty house

turning and tending her memories perhaps

I’m not quite sure

I do know she is grumpy and fussy

and likes foods that are time consuming to cook

She has her fads and her ways and still plenty of cuttings

if I don’t come around on time

she sends them home with me anyway

Once I dutifully took away a bunch of dead sticks

because I took so damn long in coming around

It made me so aware of the passing of time

and how I ought to narrow the spaces between my visits

My time seemingly so scarce to me is life to her

A small thing to give but a big thing to receive

Yet, what else would she value for herself

There is nothing else she appreciates

than the lives and garden she has tended

This no waste all giving grandma