14
Jun 2023
Nan’s Favourite

A lesson in synergised love 

 

780+ Nana Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images - iStock | Nana akufo, Nana patekar, Nana mizuki

 

She sat and listened intently to what my energetic 9-year-old self-had to say. Then when I finished my story, she whooped with laughter. I made her laugh like this so many times. I still to this day, have no idea what was so bloody funny as I was always deadly serious, but seeing the joy on her face, the warmth, the total acceptance of me, I felt empowered and seen. I was wrapped in the kind of emotional intimacy we can spend years searching the planet for. This was my Nan. Daisy Beatrice Moore .

My nan was the centre of my world when I was a kid. I loved her so much that my dad had to take her home after I had gone to sleep or I would cry buckets, full of drama, and wailing like an industrial strength banshee. She slept in my single bed with me in our small council house. I would sniff the pillow where her glorious soft grey/white curls had been and sob for eons. I remember one very wintery lashing rainy day running down to the red phone box near the round shop (yes, I’m that old) push myself into the stinky smoky door and dialling her number, tears splashing as soon as I heard her loving voice. She would put on her mentor cap, calm me down, and gently say “come on now  pull yourself together “, and I did!

Bottling Nana

Grandmothers, nanas, grandmas, nonas, whatever you want to call yours, you can guarantee with lots of kids that word comes with a rich visceral and symbolic meaning of so much connection and blind adoration. If we could bottle “Nana love” and launch it on the New York stock market the shares would go through the roof, recession, depression, pandemic, whatever.

I think we sometimes underestimate the power of grandparents in our lives. Grandparents can provide a soft nurturing and loving presence, offering heaps of emotional support and guidance. Their gentle wisdom and colourful life experience can help us navigate challenges and develop resilience. My nan would often say things to me like “save a bit spend a bit” “and “patience is a virtue “.  Whenever I struggled with reading, she would quietly keep telling me to practice.

With her gentle encouragement behind me, I felt an energy source like a combustion engine being fed regularly into my body, spurring me on. She taught me things that helped me to grasp the need to create balance in my life, which saw me at the age of 26 having saved enough money for a small house deposit despite living on the smell of an oily rag.

When we moved to Australia, I was 15 years old, it was a big change, but I believed in my naivety we’d have regular contact. We didn’t. I spent years writing “aerograms” to her, telling her about my daily struggles and what my life was like as a Welsh girl from Cardiff living now in what I deemed pompously “a cultural desert” (well, it was Adelaide in the 80s LOL).

She never wrote back but that never occurred to me as being unfair. She had been such a pivotal part of my childhood wellbeing that she had fuelled my engine enough for a million future developmental stages and life obstacles.

The Role of Grandmothers In Our Family Unit 

I was pondering on the role Grandmothers played in the family recently. Nanas have the potential to wear so many hats in the family subsystem, don’t they?

The Life Changing Lesson I Learned from My Nana | Meridian Magazine

They can be that glue that keeps the wider family together, by creating and facilitating family traditions, get together and celebrations. They often serve as a central figure in family dynamics, fostering close relationships and strengthening family bonds.

By creating a sense of belonging and connection, grandmothers I believe contribute to the overall positive humming along of the family vehicle. I remember one of my friends telling me that she had 4 female cousins all around the same age as her, and that each one of them truly believed that Nan thought that they were her favourite grandchild. Wow! Now that is some skilled manoeuvring powerhouse Grandma!

The Powerhouse That Is Nana

In many cultures, grandmothers are also actively involved in caregiving responsibilities. They may provide childcare, pick up grandchildren from school, or help with household chores. By easing the burden on parents, grandmothers can really impact the wellbeing of both children and their exhausted parents. Which in turn means parents are better equipped to be “present “with their kids on their leisure time. It’s a win win really, isn’t it?

This is why I believe we once lived so well in tribes and close communities, the sharing of child rearing was beneficial to the wellbeing of everyone. This is something that I find is beginning to dissolve in Australian culture as we become more of a global community. We tend to have family spread out not just across our vast country but across the world. As a result, we see an epidemic of older people living in nursing homes with few visitors, it’s very sad really. I love that in traditional families like Japan and China, older people are still seen as incredibly important, and their wisdom and guidance is revered. We need to cherish our older people more!

Grandmothers often possess a wealth of knowledge about family traditions, cultural practices, recipes, and life lessons. Nan taught me to sing war songs from the 40s and tap dance.  She used to be a dancer and  a singer and would glide into a song-line whilst doing the dishes. I think I heard ” I wish you’d shelter from the storm ” at least a million times.  I loved my nanas Welsh cakes; she taught me to make them on a hot stone on the stove. I’d drag a chair to the flame and flip them over carefully when browning. We’d sit and eat them together with a cup of tea (always in a delicate teacup) by the coal fire. Finding pictures in the fire formed by the  white hot coal crevices was a  regular game  and so much fun.

Being  Careful With Peanuts .

We’d go for walks to the shop, and I would drag her old grey bag on a recalcitrant trolley self-consciously through the streets. She insisted on buying me salted peanuts and Dandelion and Burdock pop (don’t ask LOL) even though I kept insisting she didn’t have a lot of money and shouldn’t spend on me.  She would tell me that I couldn’t have my peanuts before bed as they would ” lie heavy on my chest “. I never knew what that meant but I didn’t want to be afflicted whatever it was ,so planned my peanut-eating  time  extra carefully .

She would toast me  ” soldiers ” to dip into  my  perfectly runny egg and let me play “Puff The Magic Dragon” on her big old gramophone over and over again.  She made me warm milk before bed and always read me a traditional bedtime story,” The Princess and The Pea” was a favourite. At dinnertime I would be responsible for mashing up the mint I’d picked from the garden, with sugar and vinegar for our roast beef Sunday dinner. Simple pleasures and rituals but heaven in context.

Nan the Counsellor 

Spending time with grandparents as children and teenagers can create a bridge between different generations, promoting understanding, empathy, and respect. Grandmothers can pass on values, stories, and life perspectives that contribute to the wellbeing of younger family members. They can offer advice on various aspects of life, such as relationships, career choices, and personal growth. My nan was a great one for confiding in.  I would always talk to her about my annoying stinky brothers and how hard done by me was, even if my regular updates and briefings were somewhat embellished to the status of “poor overworked Cinderella”.   Nan was always my biggest sympathizer and ally if not a little brainwashed and biased …. LOL

Grandmothers can also serve as role models for their grandchildren, exemplifying qualities like patience, kindness, resilience, and compassion. By witnessing these traits in action, grandchildren can develop their own positive character traits, contributing to their overall wellbeing. I certainly felt that my ability to listen well and become very attuned to others as a counsellor came from my days yarning with Nan. I would sit in my “Three Bears” rocking chair in my orange flowered dressing gown, eating toast with marmite, cut into squares (with the crusts cut off of course LOL) as we nutted out life the universe and everything. Just sitting in her presence was a luxurious calm balm.

Kinship Bonds And Grandparents 

I often come across children in my work as a counsellor who have been placed with grandmothers due to parents being mentally unwell and suffering substance abuse disorders. Their grandmother can be a safe and nurturing haven for the child to be placed, especially when foster care can be difficult to find and often unsuitable. Kinship care particularly in our Indigenous families is very much a part of healing for children needing the stability of culture and the creation of self -identity. By sharing this knowledge and being family carers for their grandchildren, grandmothers contribute to their cultural and personal development, fostering a sense of belonging and wellbeing. It can only stand them in good stead for the future. I hope that we can find ways to reconnect more regularly with our grandparents and give back to them some of the nourishment they afforded us in our primary years. In my view the more we include them, the richer their twilight years will be and the longer they will be around. I wish that I had realised this when my nan was still alive.

It wasn’t until years later that I found out why Nan didn’t write back to me. One of her friends wrote a letter on her behalf to say thank you for my letters and that she had been unable to write due to her shaky hands and arthritis. Bless her soul. I cried again.

Dreaming of Nan

It’s probably one of the reasons I kept having the same dream about her, where Dad tells me she has died so no point in him taking me to see her, but then I subsequently find out she was still alive but unwell.  Or I’m trying to dial her number on an old green dialler phone, and I keep pressing the wrong numbers so can’t reach her. It doesn’t take Freud to work this one out…lots of guilt over feeling I had neglected her and had spent too many years away from her.

I only saw my nan one more time, when I was 23 ,I went back to Wales for a holiday. She had deteriorated a lot and was now living with my aunt. When I said goodbye to her, she was the one who cried buckets this time, I think she knew it would be the last time we’d see each other.

Forever Together

Nan had given me a nuanced texture and depth to my childhood days that only a grandparent is capable of providing and she did it effortlessly. I love her dearly still. My aunt saw a clairvoyant once, who told her, your mother’s spirit is with someone called Sian. I believe that to this day. We may have been parted for eternity, but our connection and togetherness is forever.