HOLDING ON TO THE PAST

My maternal grandmother is 92.5 years old and sharp as a tac. She is my only surviving grandparent, and the final two of seven siblings from her generation still alive. A few years ago, she told me a story about the death of her father when she was eight years old. I was taken aback. I had no idea my grandmother grew up without a father. That her mum, a single mother of seven between the ages of one and 13, raised her family, alone.

I have long thought about sitting with my grandma and documenting her story, but never had the courage to ask if she would allow me to record her words. But I presented the idea to her last weekend, and she didn’t say no.

I am reminded of one of my favourite books, Tuesdays with Morrie: An old man, a young man and life’s greatest lesson, by Mitch Albom. There is so much for us to learn from our aging loved ones, and them, from us. And I am feeling, more than ever, the pull to create an experience where an old lady, and a young lady, have a chat.

I wonder what lessons she can teach me? What world did she grow up in? What hardships and joys, what horrors and celebrations paint her heart? What does it feel like to be so close to the end? To have all your loved ones gone? What does it feel like to bury two grandchildren, my cousins?

Born into The Great Depression, her father dead in the second world war, the middle child of seven, she has lived through almost a century of life, in one of the greatest periods in documented human history. She has seen the world change in the most remarkable ways.

On my paternal side, I am the granddaughter and daughter of an immigrant. I grew up with Greek heritage and culture embedded in family celebrations and catch ups, having no capacity to speak the mother tongue of my grandparents, aunties, uncles and dad.

My grandparents’ thick-accented English was difficult to understand and, as an introvert, it was difficult for me to engage in meaningful relationships with them. They seemed so old, I was so young and shy. I watched my grandmother dance around the kitchen with a chequered tea towel tucked into her waisted apron. The smell of fresh tomatoes, lemony potatoes, dolmades (rice and mince wrapped in homegrown vine leaves) and souvlaki excited my taste buds.

The grandfather clock near the kitchen sliding door cuckooed on the hour and the plastic covered lounge and dining table preserved the lace coverings on the furnishings. It was a small three-bedroom red brick house that came alive with black-haired family members over Greek easter and Christian and Orthodox Christmases. But it took some kind of hell to create that for us.

During World War II, my grandfather, Nicholas, was enlisted to serve for the British army, with more than 30,000 Cypriot men. He left Cyprus, the small island located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and six months into his enlistment he was captured and became a prisoner of war.

When the war ended, Pappou (grandfather) returned to Cyprus where he married Yiayia (grandmother). The war demolished employment opportunities and, with countries like Australia, Canada and the USA offering employment possibilities that were propagandised to be too opportunistic to pass, months after giving birth to their third child, my dad, Pappou left Yiayia and their children to board a ship on a whimsical assurance of something more in the promise land of Australia.

He landed in Mt Isa, in north west Queensland, and mined three kilometres underground; a world away from the ocean. Yiayia remained in Cyprus, raising her two daughters and newborn son until the hope of a future for their young family was alive. Pappou corresponded with her via letters for many years.

She finally boarded a ship, five years later, with a suitcase and three children at her hip with 1000 Italians and one Cypriot man. He cared for my dad and aunties, that Cypriot stranger, while Yiayia spent 95% of the month-long boat trip violently ill with sea sickness. They arrived in Perth and caught a train and other modes of transport to arrive in the middle of bum fuck nowhere, where they lived and raised their family, adding three more children to the mix, before settling in Sydney.

My dad was five years old when he was reacquainted with his father. He remembers little of that boat trip, or meeting his dad for the first time, in the hot, desolate town in the Gulf Country in QLD. I often think about her courage, and what stories she could share if we could talk today.

Although I wasn’t close with my grandparents, Pappou is very present with me in spirit. He first came through to me during a reiki energy healing session a decade ago. The healer said he showed her fishing boats and he was excited to communicate with us on the ‘other side’. I asked dad what the fishing boats meant and he burst into tears. ‘He was an incredible fisherman’, he said. ‘He would sail off the island and come back with a boat full of fish’, he said. Pappou has visited me during many breathwork sessions, offering words of encouragement. He has been a loving spiritual guide.

He lived a life of fearless pursuit and created a life for his family that gave us the freedom we have today. It came at great cost, I have no doubt, and his courage would not have eradicated the difficulties of being an immigrant, separated from his family, living in the desert and starting a life in Australia. But I carry his gentle, gigantic and courageous energy with me, and I feel so held in his spiritual presence. I am closer to him in his death, than I ever was in his life, and I look forward to the day that I get to stand on Cypriot soil with my dad, who has never been back to his homeland, and feel that sense of coming home, remembering his story, his life, our past.

I have an urgent sense of responsibility to learn, to listen, to ask more questions, to gather stories, document ideas, beliefs and woes. I am yearning to bridge the gap between my maternal grandmother’s world and mine. Her time, and ours. To hold on to the past, before it’s lost forever.