I ♥ My Grandma!

My grandma turned 89 on the 23rd this month. 89 years. She's been through a world war, communism, raising a family and she's still going strong.

2007 Grandma Elizabet.

My grandparents stayed behind in Hungary when my parents decided to try their luck here in Sweden. We had spent the first four years of my life all living together in a small apartment in Hungary so naturally I grew very close to my grandparents, especially my grandmother. To make parenting easier and because we all missed eachother so much, my grandparents used to come and stay with us for a couple of months a year.

We always had routine, grandma and I. Nobody was allowed to tuck me in before bed but her. And nobody could tell the stories about the adopted piglet "Raisin" and his shenanigans as good as her. Before grandma started telling a story she'd always let me choose if Raisin was going to be good or bad. Depending on my choice, she'd make up a story that always included a sensmoral. How I loved her stories. And she always made sure I understood what it was that Raisin had done that was either good or bad.

My father tried to make her stop telling the stories once but that just made it impossible for them to put me to bed. My mother told me years later that the reason for that was because when my grandparents had gone back to Hungary, I always ended up rejecting his versions of the Raisin stories and he just couldn't live up to grandma's storytelling skills.

1978 Grandma Elizabet and I.

I'm too old for bedtime stories these days, but I'm pretty sure my sense of right and wrong was developed during those evenings with my grandma, and for that I will always love her.