No Answers To The Past

My grandma passed away six years ago. I never got the chance to get to know her, but my mum told me a few stories about her, such as how grandma kept a diary about day-to-day things, how she loved sewing, and how she was the heart of the community.

My mum told me how she had kept some of Grandma's things in the attic. She kept some old diaries, patches she had sewn, and dolls my grandma had collected from antique stores. I decided I wanted to find out more. I was only 6 when my grandma died, but I believed that every child had the right to know about their grandparents, so I decided to have a look around the attic.

I found an old box of dolls. As I was going through them, I found a doll dressed in a Victorian bridal gown. The gown was a little faded because it was very old, and its hair was dusty. It didn't tell me much about my grandma, but I gathered from the doll's clothes that she was a very eccentric lady.

I chose to keep the doll so that I could at least have something closely connected to my grandma's past.

I found a pile of old dusty boxes in a corner of the room, and I proceeded to open the top box. I found an old leather-bound diary in there, dated back to 1946. I decided to open it, maybe it might contain some useful information. Some pages were missing from the diary, and the few pages left were yellow and stained. However, I could just make out that my Grandma had married in 1948 to a man named Gerrard Arnold who was in the army. I then found out the shocking news that my mum had been adopted but had never been told.

That was all I found in the attic, though it didn't give me the answers that I needed. I did find out that my Grandma wasn't my mum's natural mother, but I wasn't sure that I should share that news with her. It would break her heart if I told her.

My mum was a happy lady. She was always smiling and singing just like Grandma used to. She baked lots of yummy chocolate cookies.

"They were my mum's favorite."

She would tell me smiling.

I didn't like making Mum cry. I liked it when she was happy, and I felt sad when she cried.

I headed downstairs, hiding the diary in my jumper in the hopes that Mum wouldn't notice.

But she noticed the bulk underneath my jumper.

"What are you hiding?" She asked with a smile.

"Nothing," I replied.

Mum wasn't stupid though, and in the end, I solemnly laid the diary out on the table.

It turned out that Mum knew she had been adopted, but she didn't know who her real birth parents were. All she knew was that they died when she was a baby. She proceeded to tell me that her adopted mum was very loving, but she didn't have anything else to tell me apart from what I already knew as many pages of my grandma's old diary had been lost in a fire many years ago.

I had many questions such as where was she born? Did she know her dad? What country did she come from? Were there any surviving relatives from my natural grandparents that she knew of?

My mum shed a tear, and told me,

"Sometimes, we don't have the answers that our children are looking for."

She paused, and then told me,

"I never knew my mum and dad, and I am sorry that I can't answer your questions. But, in my eyes, your grandma is still my mum. She looked after me and brought me up, and that is all that matters."

I thought about this, and then I gave my mum a hug and told her that I love her.

Sometimes we don't find the answers that we are looking for from our mothers. However, they are our parents whether natural or not; they are the ones who love us and look after us.

And that is okay because our 'mums ' are mums to us no matter who they are.