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dolorosa_12) wrote2014-10-03 01:56 pm
dolorosa_12) wrote2014-10-03 01:56 pm
What is left of us that we should linger?
My grandmother, who was called 'Marnie'* by her grandchildren, died this week.
Marnie with me when I was a baby.
My grandmother was an extraordinary woman, and what was most extraordinary about her was her empathy, kindness, generosity and capacity to love. Her arms were always open, her heart was always overflowing with love, her table was always full, and her greatest joy was always in seeing those she loved experience happiness. Thanks in no small part to her and Tony, we were able to show her that happiness almost all the time. My most abiding memories of Marnie are of the numerous ways, big and small, that her deep love and care for her family were made apparent. From her murmured refrain of 'precious cargo in the back' whenever she drove Miriam and me around as children, to her valiant attempts to read my terrible, melodramatic teenage poetry without laughing, her love was always clear. In our family, love is demonstrated above all with food, and so it should be appropriate that my strongest memory of Marnie is at the heart of a family meal, in which an extravagant feast is spread over the table and everyone is talking eloquently, passionately, loudly, at once - Marnie included.
It's always been a family joke that Marnie was impatient. Certainly, the sight of her rushing everyone out the door, agitatedly saying 'Come on, Fred! Hurry up!' to Tony, should be a familiar spectacle to us all, but what has always struck me most was her patience.
She was patient with my mother, when, aged four, Mum overheard a conversation about the need to cut her hair before starting school and hastened to give herself said haircut, with results perhaps a little too closed-cropped for Marnie's liking. She was patient with the menagerie of animals brought home unexpectedly by her soft-hearted daughters - cats, dogs, and, on one occasion, a mouse that was found in Julie's lunchbox and which proceeded to run around the house and up the curtains.
She was patient with Tony, and with circumstances, when, on a trip to Italy, the airline lost all of their luggage. For reasons about which I'm still not entirely clear, this necessitated her wearing items of Tony's clothing and later having to change hurriedly in a walkway underneath the Colosseum.
She was patient in watching her various grandchildren hurl themselves under giant waves, backwards into swimming pools, upwards on trampolines, and, in my case, around various gymnastics apparatus, even though our fearless behaviour terrified her.
She was patient in playing endless games of cards with my sister and cousins, even when they won a suspicious number of times and even when, with Miriam, this required her to provide fake sports commentary for Miriam's extravagant post-win celebrations. She was patient when I decided that I needed my jeans to be made into flares by inserting a triangular panel of cloth into each leg, painstakingly sewing it in even though the cloth was such that it was almost impossible to work with.
And she was patient with the loud, exuberant pack of grandchildren who used to tumble around her house at birthdays, Easter and Christmas celebrations. She was patient when Sophie, Miriam and I would put on over-the-top self-scripted plays (which always seemed to involve high melodrama, attempts to drag the much-more-sensible Cazz into the fray, and discordant musical numbers with a panettone tin drum and out-of-tune zither). She was so patient with us that at Christmas, 1993, she instituted the practice of singing 'The Twelve Days of Christmas', using a tea-towel as a guide. What began in the second spare bedroom at Wongalee Avenue as an attempt to keep five children still for a few minutes became an annual Christmas tradition, and although the original tea-towel has long since disintegrated, we sing the song around the dinner table every year.
Marnie with Miriam and me on a windy day on the Bondi-Bronte cliff walk, circa 1995.
There is more love and kindness in the world, because Marnie was in it. The mark of a person's life is how much love they leave behind, and and how much is owed to them by the people who loved them. On both counts, Marnie's was a life well lived. I'm sure everyone here has many reasons why their own lives are good because of Marnie. My own such reasons are numerous, but I would like to mention in particular the material and emotional support that she has provided throughout my life, especially during my postgraduate studies in the UK. I would also like to mention the enormous gift it has been to come from a family where eloquence, a good sense of humour, and emotional expressiveness were prized and ever present. This is due to a great extent to the example set by Marnie. Finally, and most importantly, Marnie taught me how tremendously important it is to live your life with kindness, not fear. This takes an extraordinary amount of bravery, but is utterly essential. I hope we are all able to continue living our lives with kindness enough to make Marnie proud.
Marnie, Tony and me at my aunt Julie's fiftieth birthday.
This is technically a eulogy, which is why some bits might read oddly for an LJ/Dreamwidth entry.
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*Note: The grandchildren call my grandfather 'Tony'.
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