I lost my grandma this summer. She would’ve turned 89 years old now in November, and I have been thinking a lot about her lately. She was always kind and good. You know, the classic grandma from the stories. Except she wasn’t all that “classical” grandma all the time. She had a wicked humour, laughed easily and would always encourage us kids to go out and find some mischief to do. She would drive us with ice cream, soda and rubber arrow guns and tell us to find something to shoot at. One time when we had been in Oslo visiting one of my aunts, she was stopped in airport security and almost detained. She had bought two new toy guns and put them in her carry-on. Yes, this was after 9/11. It was luckily quickly fixed and no one got detained or anything. But it is a memory about her that I think of quite often. She was that kind of grandma.
But her biggest forte here on this planet I would perhaps say was her cooking. She was a great cook. She ran a hotel in the 80s and also ran a catering business from her own kitchen on the side. She would make cakes, soups, meatballs and you name it. And she madeΒ a lot of it over the years. She was never the centre of the party, but there wouldn’t be a proper party without her cooking. Before she ran a hotel, cafe and a catering business she ran a farm. They grew strawberries and various vegetables. Each year from spring to autumn they would have the entire farm packed with workers and people, and she would feed them all – including her six children. The stories from those days are many, and they all seem to be quite merry. Even the more dangerous events are taken with humour and laughter. No one died, so then it could be laughed at. My mother drove the tractor through the barn wall when she was 5 years old. Funny! But it was still hard work. She worked from early morning to late night.
She would take care of house, farm, businesses, family and friends, and she always seemed to have time for everyone. I wasn’t very happy in school, so I would go and help her out in the cafe at times instead. That was usually more fun. There were a lot of students and people that I could talk to, I was given responsibilities and chores. I felt valued and helpful there. Though I am not entirely sure I was allowed to sell cigarettes to the students when I was 8.
Oh, well. I don’t think there was any harm done.
The reason I wanted to write a bit about my grandma today, was due to my dinner. I don’t quite know why, but I felt a bit in the nostalgic corner and made meatballs with potato, gravy, and mashed peas. One of my grandmas staple dinners. She have probably made around 12,500 meatballs in her life. I tried to do some math on the subject this summer, and I might actually be underestimating this number. But this meal have had me think about my childhood spent in the paradise I saw their farm as. Huge dinner parties on Sunday with the entire family gathered to argue about politics, sports, eat dinner and eat cake after. These are very fond memories, and I am glad to have had the time with my grandma that I was given. She believed in heaven and in God, and I am certain she is up there, bustling around in the kitchen and insisting that God can manage a couple more meatballs, though he insists he’s “very full, thank you very much.”
