Theme
9:03pm April 15, 2012
[A gravestone, the kind that is flat against the ground. It’s bordered in flowers and says: “Judith A. Oleson. In Loving Memory. Aug. 28, 1902 - June 5, 1993. I love you.”] My mom found my great-grandma’s gravestone on some kind of online service where you can see stuff in cemeteries. I feel really lucky that she lived long enough for me to know her, especially since my parents had me so late. I was almost 13 when she died. She was an amazing woman who went back to Sweden to live as a young child and traveled back entirely on her own when she was about 12. I don’t remember a lot about her history before I knew her. I know she worked as a maid for awhile, and married someone who was almost definitely autistic, having more than one autistic sons before autism had a name. She had a whole lot of children and brought them up during the Depression. She lived in her tiny house long enough that the two of them almost became symbiotic in a way. I mean her and the house. It’s hard to explain. She was very kind and generous. When she got older and started having a lot of health problems, her son lived with her and took care of her for as long as he could. That was just how our family did things. A lot of the time when I knew her she was living in bed and in a wheelchair when she did get up. A lot like I am now, only more physically brittle due to old age. I wish I still had a photograph, I can’t figure out when I lost it, but it had her, my grandma, my mom, and me all in a row when I was maybe nine or ten. I never knew her as well as my mother knew her, because we didn’t live near her. But I could sense the kind of person she was, and that’s a very rare kind.

[A gravestone, the kind that is flat against the ground. It’s bordered in flowers and says: “Judith A. Oleson. In Loving Memory. Aug. 28, 1902 - June 5, 1993. I love you.”]

My mom found my great-grandma’s gravestone on some kind of online service where you can see stuff in cemeteries.

I feel really lucky that she lived long enough for me to know her, especially since my parents had me so late. I was almost 13 when she died. She was an amazing woman who went back to Sweden to live as a young child and traveled back entirely on her own when she was about 12. I don’t remember a lot about her history before I knew her. I know she worked as a maid for awhile, and married someone who was almost definitely autistic, having more than one autistic sons before autism had a name. She had a whole lot of children and brought them up during the Depression. She lived in her tiny house long enough that the two of them almost became symbiotic in a way. I mean her and the house. It’s hard to explain. She was very kind and generous. When she got older and started having a lot of health problems, her son lived with her and took care of her for as long as he could. That was just how our family did things. A lot of the time when I knew her she was living in bed and in a wheelchair when she did get up. A lot like I am now, only more physically brittle due to old age. I wish I still had a photograph, I can’t figure out when I lost it, but it had her, my grandma, my mom, and me all in a row when I was maybe nine or ten. I never knew her as well as my mother knew her, because we didn’t live near her. But I could sense the kind of person she was, and that’s a very rare kind.

Notes:
  1. withasmoothroundstone posted this