Keeping my Nan and Grandad's memory alive...

My Nan and Grandad (on my Mum's side) have been gone over a decade now and every so often it creeps up on me that two of the most important people in my life (Steve and Euna) will never know them.

Background story is they were very active in my own, my sister's and my cousins' childhood. They had very little and lived an exemplary happy life and marriage despite/because of that fact. They were both each others second marriage. My Grandad was a very close friend to my Nan's first husband. He watched him die in World War II in Tunisia and on his own return home his wife had run off with an American. I have no idea of the details after that point but there's a very romantic story of them consoling each other and reminiscing together and growing close as friends and then more in my head...

For me, my mum, my sister, my cousin Mark and my Uncle Jim they're a big deal. For all of us they represent a lot of good times and conjure a lot of memories of "in jokes", games, songs, silly rhymes and sayings. "Old granny's red drawers" and "shove-ditches nest" to name a couple...

Anyway Mum and I made a trip to their grave yesterday to introduce Euna. We were racing a big black cloud all the way there and only got 10-15 minutes to clean up, say a few words, try to figure out the origin of a water logged card and take a picture. Here's the picture...

It was nice. Nice to remember. Nice to say thank you. Nice to spend a moment thinking about people who lived a happy life appreciating the simpler things in life. Humbling. There's nothing like having a healthy baby and starting a family make you appreciate what matters. This stuff matters. Passing that on matters. 

Lesson: Your families past makes who you are and who your children will be. Maybe we spend too much time dwelling on the bad stories? Good to remember the good stuff. The good people. The good values. Keep these wholesome family cultures alive.