Illustration Friday: Aging
Granny Cuts a Rug, Ink on Paper; © Jennifer Pohl
At thirteen, my grandmother Alice was a cook on a schooner up north “on the Labrador.” At eighteen, she married Walter –a man of gentle good humour and twinkling eyes– and raised two families with him (his first wife had died young). He died at 89 with a single tear running down his cheek and a smile. They had been married for nearly sixty years. My grandmother was lonely for a couple of years before she finally agreed to marry a high school sweetheart, a fine man of the same age and tiny stature who had toted her books to their one-room school over half a century before. With him she spent her final years living a second life, touring the Grand Canyon, falling out of a fishing boat into the freezing Atlantic, skidooing, and quickly recovering from a broken ankle after being chased by a horse.
Always spry and barely five feet tall, she had enough love to go around for every member of her adoring family. She may not have understood my every painting, but she supported and uplifted me through her example and love. When she passed away at the age of 83, she was surrounded by caring family and friends. My cousin Tina said “she was never old“. It’s true. She never was.
The week before Nan died, my sister said she had a dream about my grandparents dancing together. I think they may be dancing now.
This work will soon be sent off to my representative, the Christina Parker Gallery.
