Strong Women!

I JUST realized that my Mom is the same age in this video as I am now. Very strange feeling!

While sorting through old pictures I found this fantastic picture buried in an old photo album - taken in the mid-80s, before digital cameras! I set it aside to frame. It isn't the greatest shot from a composition, colour or contrast point of view, but I was just thrilled to find it because for me, it is a very powerful picture. From left to right are my

• Grandma, Dagmar Kahara (who my Grandpa called Tamara - a pet name);
• My Mom, Miriam Brinkworth
• My Nanna, Doris Brinkworth, and
• My Aunt Lea, Lea Gillies.

These were the women who raised me - all in one picture! This is the kitchen of the very first place where I lived after leaving home...an apartment attached to my Grandma's house...372B Dawson Street. My Grandma's house was the original Nurses Residence for St. Joseph's Hospital in Thunder Bay (then, Port Arthur). So it had a million bedrooms and rooms. You can imagine that living next to my Grandma was just wonderful. She was a special lady and everyone loved her. When I eventually moved, we cried and hugged each other because it was so sad to be parting - and that was when I really felt like I was leaving home.

My Grandma and Mom are Estonian (Baltic). They came to Canada when Russia invaded Estonia during WWII.They lost their farm and before leaving, my Grandpa shot all of his farm animals to prevent them from being useful to the Russians. What a sad time. After quite an adventure, they ended up in Coaldale Alberta where they picked sugarbeets and lived as tenants on a farm to pay back the Canadian Government for assistance when they first arrived. I am named after my Mom's first Canadian friend, Donna Tudor - from right here in Alberta!

I have always wished I had my Mom's tall, Estonian looks, with her blue eyes and blond hair. Even her sister, my Aunt Lea had a peaches and cream complexion with red hair and was always so beautiful. But I inherited the Irish / Welsh looks. My Nanna is five foot nothing and was a Bond from Belfast. She ended up in Leeds, near Yorkshire in England where she met my Pops who was Welsh. As a sidebar note, Pops remembered having a Collie as a child but he could never remember its name which is sad as I would have loved to use it on one of my dogs! They were quite a couple too. They decided to elope during the Depression.

Rumour had it Nanna was pregnant and she always joked how it was a six year pregnancy, as my father was not born until that long after they married! She was a happy-go-lucky woman, and my Grandfather - Pops - was a self-educated person who had a life-time membership to the National Geographic Society. I remember finally parting with all of his magazines (he passed them on to me). It was very hard as I knew how much they meant to him. He was a grain inspector in Thunder Bay. My Estonian grandfather worked for Abitibi on the paper machine. He retired from that job and died about a year later in 1979 of a heart attack while bringing home groceries for Christmas Dinner. When we were eating dinner that Christmas at Grandma's I will never forget how the old Grandfather Clock on the wall - which had not worked for years - suddenly went BONG! We all said "there's Grandpa!"

I was very lucky to grow up in such a close family. Nanna and Pops lived with us in an upstairs suite from the time I was five until I was about fifteen. But I think I inherited some strong farming genes from my Mom's side of the family! My Grandma actually tended a village flock of sheep as a child. She was so proud when I got my own sheep in 1999 - a few years after my mother died from Cancer in 1995.

By the time I got my sheep, my Mom and Nanna, Grandpa and Pops were all gone. Aside from my Grandpa Kahara, I lost them all very quickly over a period of two years. It hit me really hard, as I was so close to them all while growing up. My Aunt Lea is currently in ong-term care with Parkinson's...it is so hard to be here and not see her, however she has a very loving and devoted husband who spends all his time with her. She would sit with my sister Lori and I and tell us the most amazing farm stories from their childhood years in Estonia. I am sure it is why I long to get land and get back to my roots!

My Grandma lived until 2002. I still miss her so much. She was one of those people who shone a light on everything and everyone around her. She was an amazing gardner and cook. She is the one who gave me the rag rugs (from a post last week on raw diet). Even though she spoke broken English, we had a strong bond and I enjoyed every minute I spent with her.

In her last few years, I remember cooking an entire Christmas Dinner to bring to her apartment so we could enjoy it together, and so she would not be alone. It was quite a feat to fit it in with our hectic Christmas schedule then, but I was determined (apparently a strong Estonian trait, which is lethal when combined with a bit of Irish!).  It was sad how our family had dwindled in numbers and was far apart - I remember huge dinners as a child around my Grandma's table in the house attached to the apartment in the picture above. They are some of my best memories of Christmas.

She was ready to go - and at her funeral the Finnish pastor read a letter she had written to everyone to tell us not to be sad, and to be strong and carry on. To hear her words translated from Estonian to English was beautiful and very moving.

I have that letter and now I have this picture. After scanning it, I have framed it to sit on my kitchen counter to remind me of the strong women behind me. Sometimes it is a bit lonely here in Alberta. This past Christmas, my sister and I had some good chats and shared memories of these strong women and of Christmases past. I know I have the same strength, belief and joy in life as they have had and this picture will be my inspiration!