My son and I were sitting on the couch last night, having a little chat while my husband watched one of his scary movies that give everyone else in the family nightmares...
Marius told me that one of his classmates has a great-grandmother who lives in Edmonton and just turned 106 years old.
Isn't that amazing?
When I did some research for the travel guide I wrote last year I found out many things about Alberta and the Edmonton area. The first airport in Alberta was in Edmonton and it is still a major transportation hub for anything that goes "up north" and onto the ice roads. The first European settlers did not make an appearance until the late 19th century, but the Indigenous peoples have lived there for thousands of years.
The kid's great-grandmother is an Indigenous lady and I am sure she has amazing stories to tell. She was born just after Alberta became a province in a country that had not been created much earlier. She probably had some or all of her own children taken away and forced to attend Residential Schools.
Our conversation also made me think of my own grandmother, who would be 93 years old right now, but she passed away three years ago. I was never close to her, in fact I always thought she was a miserable old bitch. Thinking about the old lady in Edmonton - whom I have never met and will never meet - I really wondered what the heck is wrong with me. Could it be that I feel sympathy for something that someone I don't know went through, but harshly judge my own grandmother for reasons that are beyond my grasp?
I know my grandmother lived through World War II and that she had to leave her house and possessions behind, only able to grab her firstborn - my aunt - before being shipped off on a train, not knowing if she would ever find her husband again, who was fighting at the Russian front at the time. I have heard many stories about it, yet I never made the connection between the way she was and the things that she had to endure.
But right here and right now I made the connection.
And I understand.