Ok, it is family
secret time, and after the horrible weekend I could smile today. That's not due to my granny, because she still does not want to tell all I'd like to know, but that's fine, because I know she enjoys that we are there for her. And I take it as a good sign that she cuts me short when I insist on learning more about her well-being.
On to the secret ...
One of my
grandmas was a heavy smoker, like in really heavy, a chainsmoker. She stopped
smoking only after her husband (my grandpa) had retired, so without knowing for
sure, I think it was maybe the money that let her reconsider. It could not have
been her health, she did not give a damn about that new-fangled sort of thinking.
… She got lung cancer at the age of 74 and the doctors took out half of her
lung and she was sort of healed. She lived happily for another 15 years afterwards
and died of old age, and I still believe that in a way she only died because she
wanted to. Her last night was like that, she only needed someone to tell her
that it was ok to go, she fell asleep and never woke up again.
She had survived
the last four years without her beloved husband and although heartbreak is not
too medical a diagnosis, I always thought that she would have lived much longer
if grandpa had been there as well. They were deeply in love till the end. (Not
a downpost, give it a chance :D )
And only
now, because my third granny is so ill, do I look closer at some things of the
past again. Never ever before have I wondered about something that was in my
grandparents’ bedroom, in their wardrobe, right behind the door. Mind, I am
about eleven years in the ttwd business by now, but only now, 3rd February
2015, do I have a few new ideas about this part of the family.
My
grandparents had a riding crop in their wardrobe. I knew that and we even went riding a
few times, but they never brought this crop along. When anybody asked, their explanation was always
that it belonged to my cousin from the south. She was a fervent rider then, but
she visited my grandparents only about once a year, and they did not even go
riding with her every time she visited. …And the two times I remember that they
went riding, they did n o t take this crop along either!
I cannot
really say much about the hair brushes and belts that they had in the bedroom,
because this could be pure coincidence. :D And I thought that grandpa’s strop
which he used to sharpen his razor with was just a tool for shaving.
So, finally it sunk
in and now I think that they must have been more positively kinky than I’d ever
imagined. I admit that my idea is fuelled by their sweet and endless love for
each other (imagine Romeo and Juliet in very old) up to the bitter end.
You know
what, it took me all my life to see something which should have been rather
obvious. Seriously, thinking back, I’d say the signs have been there all the
time. And right now I feel like the slowest thinker on planet earth, but with a
smile.
