Holidays: Day18: Memory # 35: Mamie

We almost threw out the video camera we bought 10 years when Pikalily was born but decided to hold on to it to check out what we had recorded.  We thought we had hardly used it except for the birth of our eldest but as we scrolled through footage we discovered other hidden treasures.

There was Pikalily's birth, her funny sleeping habits and baby dreams, waking up in the morning and seeing greet us with a big grin and her first Christmas, one of the few we've spent in France with the French family.

Everyone was there, Aline and Jacqueline, my mother-in-law and her twin sister who has since passed away.  Jean-Luc, Sylvie, Mimi, Christophe, Lilou, Sonia, Manou and Delphine, even the girls' cousin Lou-Ann.  We celebrated the memories of spending Christmas and New Year together with them, the one long epic ten-day Feast that is the French winter holidays.

And then a surprise!  It turns out we had filmed the hubster's grandmother, Mamie, when we visited her in the nursing home in Marseille.  There she was, answering questions, wiping a tear away, happy to have her children and grandchildren around her, cuddling three month old Pikalily, giving her a little kiss.  She never talked much while I knew her.  She had had a stroke which had left her with speech and mobility difficulties and could only say the odd word - yes, no, the... and we would have to guess the rest with 20 questions.

The freeze frame above was a very touching moment.  Jacqueline and Aline, two of Mamie's nine children, both kissing her on the cheek.

It was the last time we saw her.  That next year was a strange one.  My Granny died in the March, then my Grandad died in the October or November and then Mamie died that November too and we flew over for her funeral.

It was an odd feeling seeing Mamie as well as the hubster's aunty and uncle Jacqueline and Lilou all of whom have since passed away.  Perhaps because we have never lived close by, our grieving is done at a distance.  It doesn't really feel like they are 'gone', more that they are just 'away', as if they've taken a long term holiday and we have the inconvenience of not being able to talk to them or spend time with them for the moment.  Perhaps when we visit them next it'll hit home again.