So, we arrive at Day Two of HiveBloPoMo. You can read more about it here. It's a worthy challenge for those who are regular bloggers, or trying to become regular bloggers.
Onwards...
Me and my Auntie making Christmas cookies, December 1965. Scan from an old faded snapshot.
Share the Memory of a Departed Loved One for All Souls Day
I had a rather "scattered" childhood, which meant my parents travelled a lot and we moved around a lot. Most of these moves/trips were outside Denmark, and were connected to my dad's work. I didn't always get to go along, as a result of which I was partially raised by my father's sister. When some overseas trip was afoot, I would often get deposited with her for a few weeks or a few months. Not always, but sometimes.
My Aunt Ulla was 14 years older than my dad, and lived alone; she had never married although she had had a number of "male friends." By the time I was born, she was already 57 years old.
On the whole, she simply preferred the freedom of living alone, and she was a highly introspective and independent personality who always preferred to just do things her own way.
My Auntie's summerhouse, where most of my "happy" childhood memories were created
She'd lived a fascinating life, becoming one of Denmark's first female executives; she was also an inventor who held multiple patents mostly in the field of repurposing/recycling during World War II; she was a shrewd investor always keenly aware of the financial and banking world... and yet she was one of the most low key and "Zen-like" people I have ever known.
Without really knowing it, she taught me the fundamentals of meditation when I was no more than 6-7 years old... when we'd go out on the back porch of her house after lunch (or dinner, in the summertime) and simply "Sit and See" for 15-30 minutes. I learned to be quiet and to sit still and genuinely see the world around me, rather than bouncing aimless around like a ping-pong ball on crack.
Much of my appreciation of nature came to me that way. We'd sit for a while, and then she'd quietly point something out to me: "You see how those birds over there are flying in and out of that tree and chirping a lot? There's probably an owl sitting in one of those trees."
Invariably, we'd be able to walk over there and find "owl sign" on the ground.
She was a firm believer in knowing the world around us and she taught me most of what I know about wild mushrooms, berries and the like. In the fall, we'd often drive to the nearby forest and head out to look for chanterelle and bolete mushrooms... often with great success. Somehow, she seems almost instinctively able to tell where the "good places" would be.
We rarely came home empty handed.
Above all, she taught me how to stop and think things through whenever I faced a challenge or problem, and to really consider how I could solve it with a combination of my mind, common sense and experience. It was a kind of radical self-reliance that was more based on practicality than anything else... it wasn't that she thought that asking for help was bad, just that you should try your best to figure things out on your own before calling for help.
Thanks to her, I know an awful lot about gardening, financial markets, construction, preserving food, cooking with few resources and how the world works. I also learned from her how to take the time to "fix" things by looking for and understanding the root cause of an issue, rather than just slapping a quick band-aid on it and moving on.
She also taught me that just because we have a "generally accepted way" of doing things doesn't mean that's the best way to do them. Or, rather, that it's the best way for ME to do them, because in service of mindfulness and respect for others, the "generally accepted way" might be the best way for THEM.
In time, I grew up and moved to the USA, but I took many of her lessons with me. And when I'd head back to Denmark for summer breaks (to WORK, hah!) I would typically stay with Aunt Ulla, rather than elsewhere... because — yup, you guessed it — my parents were typically traveling or somewhere else.
My Aunt passed away in 1998, at the ripe old age of 94. She lived by herself, pretty much independently, till the very end. She did give up her driver's license on her 85th birthday, admitting that her reflexes weren't what they had been... but along the way, she'd befriended the lady who'd been bringing her mail for 25 years, and they had an arrangement that she'd drive my aunt to the shops (and other appointments) once a week.
Her death was much like her life had been: Quiet and undramatic.
One of my cousins had come to visit on a day in early October; they had had a good lunch and he had left as she was getting ready for her afternoon nap. Over lunch, she had said that she "really had accomplished everything she felt she could, and she felt 'full' of life." She went to bed for that nap... and didn't wake up.
Her legacy lives on, thanks to all that shrewd investing... the summerhouse picture near the top of the page was converted to a "family timeshare" for subsequent generations to return to... and it is where Mrs. Denmarkguy and I now stay when we go back to Denmark for vacations.
If you sit very still on the back patio, you can still feel Aunt Ulla's presence...
Thanks for reading, and have a great rest of your week! See you again for the next one...
How about YOU? Do you have someone in your life who's now gone, and you often think about them? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly and uniquely for this platform — NOT cross posted anywhere else!)
Created at 20211102 18:27 PDT
0387/1628
What an inspiring lady. Thank you for sharing her story.