Ana Rednic - My grandmother’s history

Two days ago, I went to the park to meet and talk with my grandmother about something precious in her childhood. And that is something that I want to tell you about.

As we were walking (for two hours straight! Ups!), I started asking questions about her childhood. She told me that back then everyone's lives were hard. They didn’t have phones, buses, or cars, it was very hard. I’m glad that we are not in those hard times anymore. My grandmother was born in 1965 in Bogdan Voda, Romania, a four hours drive from Cluj-Napoca. She grew up with three sisters, her mother and father. One of her sisters died at the very young age of 10. A few years later her father died too. She was left with her sister and her mother. Then her mother got married again and, fortunately, nobody died. She told me about how she played a lot with her sister. They liked to play hide and seek very much. She told me that her sister was cheating all the time but they had a lot of fun. The school back then wasn’t as cool as it is now; it was hard. They didn’t have as many possibilities as we have. But there’s one minus to our school. We finish school at 16.00, while they finished school at 12.00. At present she is an accountant and her hobby is doing massages. Now let’s get to her most precious memory, which is spending her time embroidering all day long, under the tree, behind their house. The patterns that she made were really beautiful, that’s why she started selling them at the local market, together with the vegetables her parents were growing. You couldn't find games to buy there, so you could only buy yarn and needles for embroidering. Embroidery is something that got passed down the generations as my mother and also myself are very passionate about it. Now, whenever my grandmother sees those patterns hanging on the wall by her bed, she is reminded of those times when, even though life was hard, she used to feel at peace with just a cloth and a needle in her hands. This is such a good lesson for each of us: We don’t need much to be happy. Instead of crying about things that you can’t have, here’s a better way. You can find joy in things that you already have and are meaningful to you.