On point with nostalgia

I seem to be on point with this blog, nostalgia is a powerful contributor to well being according to this article in a magazine that I am reading on my veranda.

Boy, nostalgia plays tricks with me though.

I have Nan's letter from 1964 and she is giving Mom an update on Pa and her health. We were down at the coast having a seaside holiday.

I get the impression from her letters that he was not a well person, in this letter he is having x-rays, is in pain and takes pills. And I assumed he died when I was young.

I remember him so well during the years as a young girl.

Their home, his warmth, his wet kisses, him making me things, like Barbie furniture. I still have a  bookcase he made me which has always been a much loved piece.

One of my favourite photos of me is dancing for him at the 1959 Iscor Christmas Tree. He is encouraging me and is obviously delighted, what the photo does not show is the 300 some people watching me perform!

Eligwa Clubhouse, Iscor Christmas Tree for staff, 1959

But somehow he fades into the background at some point in my life - most probably the teenage years.

I was rather taken aback this morning when I found a family photo from 1976. I was looking for a photo of Clive that I wanted to use in the blog.

In fact more than taken aback, I was shocked.

My mother's father is in the photo with Mom, Clive (age 16) Inel (age 9) and little Doreen (age 6).

Once again my memory of these years after I left home and lived in Johannesburg is vague. I do not remember him during this phase! I would have sworn that my sisters did not know him.

Yet he was still alive when I was 20 years old and he is visiting the family in our home in Wenning Street, Vanderbijlpark.

It troubles me so that I do not know when he died, I cannot remember a funeral either.

Family at home in Wenning Street. 1976
From L: Mom, Clive, Inel, Pa and Doreen.