A life

She was born in December 1926, the third of nine children.  Like her four sisters and four brothers, she had a proper, old-fashioned name, but for her entire adult life, she was known as Jo.  Not a shortened version of her legal name, but a nickname, given to her by the man who became her first husband, and still used by almost everyone to this day.

She was married at 19, became a mother the day before her 20^th birthday.  Her second daughter was born prematurely, by emergency caesarean, three years later.  The resulting blood loss nearly killed both of them, but somehow, against the odds of the 1950s, both mother and daughter survived.

She was widowed in her early thirties, with two daughters under 15.  There was no real social services and parental support then, so she had to get a job.  Although it was a ridiculous luxury, she always had a telephone at home, so that her daughters could call her each afternoon at work when they arrived home from school.  They were both required to speak to her, and she would give them their list of afternoon chores then, so that she knew they were both home and doing the work that she’d asked of them.

Over the years, she had many different jobs.  She worked in a nursing home and hospital, where she learned how to perfectly fold linen and organise a linen cupboard.  For years, whenever a family member moved house, Jo would come to visit and organise their linen cupboard; perfect folds and edges, all in beautiful rows.  “If I did it any other way,” she’d say, “Sister would never have approved”.  She would help lay out bodies and wash them for burial at the nursing home, doing make up for the ladies and brushing out their hair.  “There was no one else for them,” she commented once. “It was my pleasure to send them off looking beautiful.” 

Both her daughters were married before their 21^st birthdays, and she was a grandmother at 42.  Four others grandchildren followed over the next 12 years; three granddaughters and two grandsons.  She remarried in her forties, to a man she’d known for many years, a man ten years her senior and whom her daughters called Wal but her grandchildren always called Pa. 

Jo and Wal travelled to Europe in the 1980s, returning with a collection of traditional dolls for their granddaughters to go along with the almost weekly postcards from every country they visited.  They were always busy, always happy, surrounded by friends and family.

Her first great-grandchild arrived when she was 69, her last when she was 89.  There were ten in total, five girls and five boys.  Her first great-great-grandchild is due at the end of April.

Wal died at 93, just before the birth of their sixth great-grandchild.  He had been fit and well on the 1^st of January, laughing and making jokes during a visit with his pregnant granddaughter and her husband.  A few days later, he had a medical episode, which necessitated an ambulance ride to the local hospital.  A subsequent scan revealed significant brain cancer; he died on the 1^st of February in hospice care.  His funeral was so well attended that the funeral home had to open additional space for all his mourners.

Widowed for the second time, Jo went on with the business of living.  She still travelled – visiting her older sister in Adelaide, her granddaughter in Brisbane.  Following the birth of her youngest great-grandson, she flew to Brisbane by herself on Boxing Day to meet him.  She’d just turned 89; he was 18 days old.  She still remembered everyone’s birthdays and anniversaries, sent cards herself while her eyesight allowed it, dictated the words she wanted written to her daughter once her sight had declined.  She could tell you a story from 1942 with the same clarity and attention to detail as a story about yesterday, and she always had a joke and a smile and a great deal of sass under essentially all circumstances. 

In the last year, she’d been admitted to hospital a few times, but she still lived at home by herself, doing her own cooking, dictating her shopping lists to her daughter who did her groceries, with the only assistance being a weekly cleaner.  Every evening at five o’clock she spoke to her younger daughter on the phone.  Every New Year’s Eve, she would go to bed at her usual time, but set her alarm for just shy of midnight.  She would see the new year in, toast it with a glass of bubbly, and then go back to bed.

She was born the third of nine, but was the eldest surviving sibling.  Her two older siblings, a brother and a sister, have both passed away, as have two of her younger siblings, also a brother and a sister.  Her two surviving sisters are in their 80s, her two youngest brothers are in their 70s.  There was a 23 year age gap between the eldest and the youngest in her family – Jo’s youngest brother is only 18 months older than Jo’s eldest daughter.

In December last year, just after her 93^rd birthday, she travelled with her eldest daughter to visit her eldest great-granddaughter for a gender reveal party.  The concept of a gender reveal party had to be explained to her; she found it rather amusing.  The revealed colour was pink, meaning that the eldest of each generation – child, grandchild, great-grandchild and great-great-grandchild – were all female. 

January saw her back in the hospital again, this time with gallstones.  An operation followed, and all went well, against all expectations.  The week after she returned home, she had a stroke, and returned to the same hospital.  The impact of the stroke was, as expected, quite significant, and given her age, there was limited hope for any recovery.   Three weeks later, however, she had improved enough to be sent to rehab.  She wasn’t back to her old self, but she was still Jo, even if she was sometimes telling you a story in which events from 1985 occurred at the same time as yesterday’s lunch.  She was sent to respite care, and was back in hospital after four days, following a fall and a bad case of gout. 

And she was in hospital when the Western Australian government started putting care facilities into lockdown, closing the borders and shutting the state off to try to limit the spread of COVID-19.  Jo could only have a single visitor between 10 and 12 each day, and her two daughters would come on alternate days.  She cannot understand the fuss, doesn’t remember why she can’t have multiple visitors and wonders about her siblings, her grandchildren and her great-grandchildren.  “Where are they?” she would sometimes ask.  “Why don’t they visit me?”

Jo is my grandmother.  Her younger daughter, the one who survived her premature arrival in 1950, is my mother.  I saw Pa for the last time on New Year’s Day ten years ago, seven months’ pregnant with my eldest daughter and on my way to the airport on the way home to Brisbane.  My son is the youngest of her great-grandchildren – his birthday is four days after hers.

No matter what life has thrown at her, Nan has managed it all.  My mother has often told a story that is my particular favourite when it comes to describing how Nan has just carried out throughout.  Nan had an interview for a job one day, for the sales team for a typewriter company.  When she arrived, the interviewer apologised, explaining that they were not interviewing women – they wanted salesmen only.  She told him that if he hired her, she’d be his best salesperson within three months.  He agreed to give her the chance to prove herself, and my Nan went straight home and asked my mother (who was a secretary) to please show her how to put a ribbon in a typewriter.  Even though she’d known nothing about typewriters when she got the job, she was indeed their best salesperson within a few months.

I spent much of my childhood living a long way from my grandparents, due to my father’s job.  Nan and Pa would visit us frequently, and we’d stay with them when we were visiting the area they lived.  She would write us letters, send us gifts, tell us stories over the telephone, or while sitting beside your bed, brushing your hair off your forehead while she talked.  When we visited them, she would show us all the treasures in her china cabinets, tell us where they came from.  We would always drink out of the same set of plastic cups, in 1970s green and orange and blue.  When we visited Nan with our children, they always drank from the same cups.  Every time I see those cups, I am reminded of being a child, safe and loved, in my grandparents’ home.

On Easter Sunday, my Nan died, her two daughters and eldest granddaughter by her bedside.  She was not a famous person, not rich or well-known.  She was just an extraordinary ordinary person, a woman we all loved dearly and respected deeply.  We will miss her.