Technology

Dear Readers

All two of you (the third follower is really me) (I'll bet you couldn't tell)

Right

I am trying to add this Library Thing to my blog.

And it's not working.

So I am going to paste it here and see what happens!

I love technology. And I hate it. I'm a letter writer. My first letter was to Father Christmas telling how good I had been and that Dad wanted rain, just not during harvest, and that my little brothers wanted bikes and my mother just wanted a bit of peace and quiet and a hot cup of tea and warm toast with butter and vegemite. I can't remember what I asked for. A book probably. Or fairy wings. I always wanted some fairy wings...

Email has been wonderful and email has been horrible for my letter writing. I found a letter my Nanna wrote to me a few years ago. Her eyesight had been shot for many years and the words ran in curves lines, straight off the page, like a photograph of striations in a cliff face along a river.

But just to see her words was a comfort. She died in June. She was one hundred. She had a grace and elegance and style. She was argumentative and political. And she liked everyone she met.

She couldn't understand how people in shops knew her name (it was written on the credit card) and she disliked being called 'Maud'. She was accepting of life. She's known skinny years, the depression, both wars. And she's knows luxe times as well, trips overseas, a beach house, a fancy new Ford sports car.

She encouraged my writing. She encouraged me in everything I did.  I can't remember her ever being cross with me. Perhaps she spoiled me.

I have her eternity ring, I like that her husband, my grandfather who I never knew, he gave it to her. And I like that though they were separated by death for other forty years, and Nanna had plenty of suitors, she never stopped loving him. And perhaps that was to Nanna's detriment as she was often lonely and enjoyed it when 'people who belonged to her' were about.

But we burried Nanna in the same plot as Russell (though there was not enough room on the headstone to put her name, so Mum had to have it re-sanded and engraved. We all thought Nanna would live forever. And she did. Living for a whole century is like living through and without time)

So, I have her ring, I wear it next to my engagement ring. I have the fat Buddha that sat under the wall heater. I have a painting her mother did. I have the wonderful old mirror that hung above the mantle that so often I looked into before I went out for the night.

But I really just wish I had her back. These things don't make me feel closer to her, not really. They are lovely reminders of my beautiful grandmother.

But really, I wish there was some kind of technology to let her know that I loved her. And that her kindness and gentleness towards me I will always treasure.

And feel just one more of those vice-like hugs she gave. The more frail she became the stronger her hugs. Like she felt like we were letting her go.

It's hard to say goodbye, isn't it?

I don't really know how.

Mum asked Nanna what the secret of living to one hundred was. Nanna replied that she had forgotten as she was now five hundred. And then she said with a kindly eye 'help others'.

Much like Gandhi when he said 'be the change you wish to see in the world'.

Not that Nanna would approve of me comparing her to Ghandhi. Or maybe she would. She could be grandiose at times.

Not like me at all.

Let's see if I can make this Library Thing work!

Have a lovely day,


Kind regards,

Catharine