I KNOW I'M NOT SENILE

I KNOW I’M NOT SENILE

Yet, no one remembers it that way

 ^^

 I remember growing up and hearing many stories from my grandmother.

 Maybe I should begin by saying my grandmother and mother were not born in America, in fact, both were born in England. In one respect, which doesn’t matter but in the overall way of telling her story, the so-called facts fit my grandmother’s personality perfectly.

 Nanny (as we called her) told me about her parents: her mother was a homemaker and her father a seaman – and no, she never specified what kind. Was he in the British Navy? Was he a fisherman? For all I knew, he might have just owned a small rowboat and spent days on the water catching supper for his family. As I said, Nanny never specified and I was too young or later on, too busy to ask.

 I was intrigued when she told me of her siblings – all twenty-eight of them, several sets of twins in the mix.

 To say my young mind absorbed the facts without so much as a hint of explanation is a mild statement.

 Twenty-nine children in one family? Wow!! My parents only had three and I was the middle child. For whatever reason, I never once thought of asking her for their names since she spoke mostly of her sister, Lily, who seemed to be favorite.

 Nanny mentioned her brother, Tom who came to a horrific and sad ending during World War One. According to Nanny, he befriended a young man from the opposing side who later, shockingly and spontaneously shot Tom in the back.

 Guess I should mention that my grandmother was the youngest of her …. Siblings.

 Nanny told me of the many cats that roamed their farmland.

 While I was always fascinated by lightning, she warned to be very careful since one of her older sisters had been struck and killed by a lightning bolt as she ran across the field for home. Yes, that thought terrified me and while I’m still fascinated by lightning, I watch from the safety of the inside of my home.

 As I grew into my teenage years, my grandmother no longer told her stories. I never asked why but then, as a teen, I didn’t sit still long enough for her to relate any more of them.

 My wonderful grandmother breathed her last in June of 1965. I was seventeen. It was then that I started wishing I’d paid more attention to her stories and gave her more time to tell me more about her life.

 However! Isn’t there always a “however”?

 I was sure that as a child, my mother heard all the stories her mother told and probably much more than I had heard.

 Mom smiled. “Oh honey,” she said with a sigh, “I don’t remember any of that and that’s probably because none of it ever happened.”

 “What? She made it all up?”

 Mom said, “Let’s sit and have some tea and biscuits and I’ll tell you what I know for sure.

 “Your grandmother was born in 1890 but in February, not on January first as she likes to tell people. Yes, her mother was a homemaker, and her father was a seaman. He worked on a fishing boat. She was not one of twenty-nine children. She had only one sister. Lily was three years older than your grandmother and no, there was no brother Tom who was killed in the war.

 “She was not raised on a farm. Her mother fed the one stray cat that always found her way to the doorstep for a bowl of milk – and before you ask, back then, everyone thought milk was good for cats and they were wrong but getting back to your grandmother – her sister, and only sibling, was never struck by lightning but died in England around 1956 but I’m not sure of the exact date. Lily never married and Nanny never mentioned the cause of her death.

 “So, you see, Nanny loved telling stories but she’s the only who liked to remember her life as she told it. And, sweetheart, since you were little and such a good listener, she just let her imagination run wild.”

 In the end, if, through the years as I was growing up, I were to encounter anyone who might have known my grandmother, no one, and I do mean NO ONE would have remembered her life as I thought I knew it.

 And yet, I’m sure I’ve inherited my grandmother’s way of storytelling.

 So, Nanny, thank you for teaching me the wonderful way to use my imagination.