A tv commercial triggered tears today for the loss of a lady who was one of my primary carers. Then I realised that I actually didn’t have the experience of having an actual Nana, and instead I was crying for a lady that I “adopted” as my Grandma.
My dad’s mother Lili was never allowed to leave Estonia which was under communist rule at the time, and passed away before it was safe for us to visit. My mother’s mother Alma lived in Perth when I was born in Sydney, and we only went to visit her once when I was 2 before she passed away.
Aunty Linda as she was known to me, didn’t have any children of her own and lived with her husband in the inner city of Sydney. They too were originally from Estonia and rented a room to my Father when he first moved to Sydney as a single man pursuing my mother.
My father had been separated from his single mother during WWII at the age of about 8 or 9 in Estonia, and trucked off to Germany and homed in a displaced person’s home with other young boys who were also “orphaned”. He had to wait until he was of age before he could apply to be accepted into either Canada or Australia. He was considered underweight for Canada as they needed woodchoppers, so he was shipped to Perth.
He met my mother in Perth, who had also travelled to Australia with her brother and parents by ship. They were lucky to make it as their boat had been bombed on the way and was taking in water. My uncle fell in love with a girl from Sydney and moved to marry her. My mother then followed her brother in her Austin Martin, and then my dad followed my mother on his motor bike to pursue a relationship.
Dad found a home with Aunty Linda and her husband Karl in Stanmore, once he found work in the city. They became like surrogate parents to him, and even after he bought a place of his own and married, and had me, they still played a significant part in our lives. Every school holidays I was taken to their home for them to care for me during the day. I loved it, and I loved them. So one day I asked if Aunty Linda would be my Grandma and she agreed.
She passed away about 10 years ago now, her husband many years before. I remember the love she showed me, the lovely time we spent together, and how much she taught me. I also remember how much she’d light up when I’d come to visit her when she eventually had to move into a home after a stroke. While I didn’t have these experiences with a maternal grandma, I am forever grateful for having them with Aunty Linda.
I too like Aunty Linda could not have children of my own. Maybe I could be an Aunty Anne to a child one day who doesn’t have a grandmother around. Maybe we’ll an app to match Aunties to families. Considering 1 in 4 women in Australia of child-baring age are childless, and 90% of these not by choice, there will be a lot of people out there with lots of love and time to share once they retire. Maybe this is the answer to the financial struggles parents are finding with childcare in the future.
Anne Barratt – Kinesiologist, Hypnotherapists and Transformational Life Coach
Also advocating for those Childless Not By Choice
www.empoweringhealth.clinic
www.empoweringthechildless.com
Anne Barratt is owner of Empowering Health in Springwood NSW offering services in Kinesiology, Hypnotherapy, NLP, EFT, Reiki, Epigenetic Healing Cycles, and other forms of mind-body energetic work. Determined to help others with their health and wellbeing not make the same mistakes she did, Anne left her corporate career, to research and study the human body and how it works, to better understand the underlying contributing factors to symptoms, and how the body is designed to heal itself. Anne is also an international writer, and speaker, advocating for the childless and those with fertility issues.
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