@brittarnhild
My cousin Benedikte, the oldest daughter of my uncle John, passed by our house on her way back to Sweden, where she lives today. She and her siblings, five of them, had been together and divided their father´s estate. Among furniture and books and all the suff left behind when a person dies, there was a painting they wanted me to have.
A painting of the farm where my grandma Olga, the mother og uncle John, my mother and their two sisters, grew up. The farm was, and is still today, situated north east of Trondheim, less then an hour to drive from our house. No one lives there today, the main house is not there any more and the other houses are more or less in ruins.
The painting was a gift directly to my heart.
We have already hung it in our living room, where I can see it every day. There are no people in the painting, which is painted directly on a piece of old plywood, but when I look at it, I see grandma Olga, as a little girl, playing with her sisters and her one brother. I see life unfold. Life leading up to my own birth.......a long time later.
Come to The House in the Woods, and I will tell you about my grandma, my mormor Olga.
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Can you remember that I wrote about this painting already three years ago?
Here is the post:
Memories almost forgotten
I took my mother to visit her older brother today. My mother is number three in a row of four siblings. They are all still alive, all living in Trondheim. As number three my mother is 84. Her baby sister is 80, her older sister 86 and the three sisters big brother is 87. The big brother, my uncle John, lives alone, and every third week my mother visits him to pick up his dirty bedsheets. A few days later she is back, this time with clean sheets. To reach my uncle John´s home, my mother has to go by two buses, and believe me, a bag of dirty sheets is heavy. So is a bag of clean sheets. Week after week my mother do this travel. The heavy bag feels "he isn´t heavy, he is my brother".
Today I took my mother to uncle John. Uncle John is my godfather, grandma Olga was my godmother. Grandma Olga had been a widow for a month when I was baptised. Grandpa Benjamin diad of cancer two months after I was born. He met me once and then he laid his thin, weak hands on my head, blessing me. This blessing has followed me though all my life.
While we were with my uncle John today, my eyes fell on an old painting. "I know this painting from my childhood" I said, "I remember it used to be on grandma Olga´s wall." My mother and my uncle John both started to talk in unison "Sure, this farm is our mother, your grandma Olga´s homestead. Our grandma, Ane Marta, Olga´s mother, used to live in the white building" They were both eagerly speaking by now, and the more they talked, the more they remembered.
I was the listener. My ears growing. My heart beaming. Just like in one of the Narnia books, I found myself walking into the painting. I played with grandma Olga only she was not a grandma then, but a girl my age. I milked the cows with great grandma Ane Marta. I watched deaf old great grandpa drinking his coffee from the saucer. I came here during the WWII together with my mother and her siblings, escaping the German soldiers in Trondheim. I picked wild flowers on the meadows. I sorted the buttons while grandma Olga sewed.
So many years.
So many tales.
Before leaving uncle John I took a photo of the painting with my cell phone.
And here I am, sharing it all with you.
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