My grandmother's anniversary.

Today is the anniversary of my paternal grandmother's death.

A photograph dated July 25th, 1939.

She died on this day in 1991. I was four years old. It was my first experience with death and I'll tell you what: it left me poorly adjusted. I started school that year and it was the first time that I'd been separated for my parents and/or immediate relatives in my entire life. So there I was in the kindergarten classroom almost always bawling my eyes out. I'm pretty sure Mrs Robertshaw was sick of me and my constant crying.

I'm sure that if she was around today, I wouldn't get along very well with her. I've been told that she was stubborn, very devout to her faith and pretty conservative in her views. But back then she was the one that usually took care of me when my parents were out. After my parents, she was probably the next closest person to me.


I mentioned that she was very much devoted to her faith. She was Roman Catholic and I've been told (and I sort of remember, too) how she'd regularly pray with her Rosary beads, sing religious songs and hymns and teach me about God, Jesus and the bible.

A cousin of mine in recent years joined the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints and became a Mormon. She went back through the family tree and 'converted' my grandmother, which meant that she too was now inducted into the Mormon Church.

I suppose that in my current state of atheism, I shouldn't really mind what my cousin did. On one hand, I believe that death is death and this conversion really doesn't, in reality, make a diference. My gran lived her life the way she wanted and that's that. My cousin can can take comfort in the fact that her gran is going to whatever afterlife she wishes for her while everyone else does the same with their own respective views on life after death.

But on the other hand, I feel that my gran's memory, life and faith have been disrespected. She lived and died dedicated to her Roman Catholic faith and suddenly, years after her death - when she isn't able to defend her beliefs or refuse to be converted - she's been taken into a Church whose beliefs she didn't ever believe in.


Listening to:
Title: No Need To Argue
Artist: The Cranberries
Album/station: Blackrock OST (1997)
Length: 2.53