My grandma lived happily near the canal in a small town called Aalsmeer. Two of her sons with their families lived next to her. My grampa was a constructor, He build arcs, houses, coffins. My grandmother loved life. She had her own vegetable garden, she traveled to far away countries. She loved watching nature and spotting planes.
Grandma really looked like a grandma, her hair was silver she curled it every few weeks, the dresses she wore were of high quality. She wore these big glasses. Her favorite drink was Rooibos Tea she dipped Verkade bisquits in it. She read two news papers, Telegraaf and Trouw, she loved solving puzzles.
She was too kind for the world. She told me that once there lived a mouse in the kitchen, she hadn’t told gramps about the mouse or else the poor thing just got poisened. Instead she let him out of his hole by secretly feeding him pieces of cheese or sausage when my grampa was sitting in the living room. Grandma would go to church on Sunday morning, she sang really off key, I always had a good giggle inside.I visited my grandmother at least twice a week.
When I was a little kid the whole family got together every sunday. The elder family members were sitting in front of the house, drinking coffee talking about what happend during the week. All my nieces and nephews would sit in the back playing cards, board games, as we grew older we would play on our game boys. We would eat snacks like the famous ham and cheese crisps, sausages and cheese. Grandma cooked vegetable soup. it was a real happening every Sunday.
Me an grandma both agreed that I should stay for dinner, called my parents that I wasn’t coming home. We would watch the news and The Bold and the Beautiful together. We cooked, steak,pears and potatoes. We chatted about the news and the family. I really felt welcome and accepted. More of my nephews and nieces visited grandma during the week.
My younger years were from time to time a total nightmare. I got bullied a lot by my sister, because I didn’t fit in I. I was a fat kid, struggling with my identity. The small town where I lived didn’t give me a feeling of belonging there.Predominantly white people whom i couldn’t identify with.
There was this group of nazi skinheads who would hang in places where we ice skated during the winter for instance. The boys would skate Swastikas in the ice and wear skinhead clothes. There was this young man whenever I passed by him on my bicycle he always wore his jacket open so I could see the white power sign on his shirt. Such a strange unfriendly place. I hated every inch of it.
My grandma didn’t judge me how I looked or what I said. She was a safe haven.So that’s why I loved to visit her.
It was early in the morning, when my parents received a call from my uncle, grandma passed away while she was sleeping. My uncle lived two houses down from my grandma. He went and tried to open the back door which was locked. The back door had a combination lock but it wasn’t open so he ticked the code in and found her laying in bed. The whole family gathered in her house and we went upstairs to her bedroom. We all stood around her bed. It looked as if she was still sleeping. She layed on her side her head on the pillow. Between the pillow was a towel. My grandmother didn’t like to drool on her pillow. Her hair was silver and she had no wrinkles on her face.Right beside her on the night cabinet was a glass of strawberry lemonade. She always had a glass of lemonade beside her because when she wakes up in the night her mouth always felt a bit dry. There where no signs of struggle at all, she had gone in peace while she was sleeping. The family decided to let her stay at home until the funeral so that the whole family could be with her. it was a continuous mantra of saying goodbye and bringing up good memories.
As if she knew she was going to pass away sooner or later. She had stickered all of her Swarovski kristal animals. Every grandchild got one. I got a mouse.
One day I hope to be a grandma and be as sweet like her. Listening to my grandchildren.
The song grandma’s hands by Bill Whithers is great. The song is already old I just recently found out about the song and it really made me think of her.
Bill Withers – Grandma’s Hands: http://youtu.be/qv5pagal-ls
Den Baos 
Haha, ja, oma. She really was a great loving person. I remember one time she told us that she went out with her friend in Spain. Opa had already died. She went there for some tea and she loved the place. The only thing that bothered her were the half naked ladies. Whahaha, she had gone to a nightclub. Pieter and I were with her the night she died to watch the lottery show on RTL4 (we didn’t have that at home) we were switching between that and the lintjesregen 30th april because she wanted to see that. We stayed until about midnight and were in shock to hear the next morning that she had died between midnight and 1 in the morning. Just couldn’t beleive it. You are a great writer Desiana! Love to read your stories (must admit though I haven’t read all of them but the ones I did were great!)
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I’d remember here playing rumicub and her cheating whenever she got bored. I thought she only had a visit from Pieter. I can totally imagen. Grandma was a great person, always very “netjes” with her words.
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