She Was My Baba

 

You become a grandma and you start giving more thought to your own grandmother.  My baba was Ann Repski.  I called her Nannie.  She died when I was three so I don't really have any real memories of her but I have been told so many stories about her that I really feel I do remember her.  

I am also thinking a lot about her because I am now at the age that she was when she died.  She died from complications from Type II Diabetes.  She wasn't overweight or sedentary and she didn't have any of the "typical" risk factors that one would associate with diabetes.  It was unfortunate that she had diabetes but it was even more unfortunate that she was diagnosed with diabetes two generations ago.  Medicinal science has made so much progress in helping people manage their diabetes.  

Everything that I know about her I cherish.  She and her family left everything in the Ukraine to immigrate to Canada.  That is a braveness to which I aspire.  She had a great sense of humour and took joy out of every opportunity.  She spoiled me rotten and insisted on having me spend as much time with her and my gigi.  They lived in Melville so my mom would take me for a week or two at a time.  I loved it there and I don't think that is a planted memory.  The story that I have been told is one time, when I was 2 my parents pulled in the driveway to pick me up.  I saw their car and I hid under my grandparent's bed and told my Nannie, "tell them I have already left."  My Nannie couldn't stop laughing.  

She was a social justice warrior before that was even a term.  A black family moved into the small town of Biggar when my mom was about 8.  My baba led the charge to welcome this family and said something (loudly) when she saw evidence of racism.  



I know she was remarkable.  My mother received a letter about 10 years after baba died.  It was from the wife of one of her former doctor.  My baba was his patient decades earlier before he moved to California.  I still have the letter and is so heart-warming and speaks to how much they both cared for my baba.  

I like to think that I have a lot of her personality within me.  Her disease had her have frequent hospital admissions.  Many times she would lose consciousness for periods of time, sometimes short periods and sometimes longer.  One time she was out for quite a while.  My gigi came to her bedside directly from work with CP rail and stayed with her until she woke up.  When she woke up, she sat right up in bed and said, "John, what is wrong with you?  Why didn't you go home and change your shirt?" I have to admit that sounds like something I would say !!

My gigi lived 24 more years without her and I don't think a day went by that he didn't yearn for her.  He told me so many stories and it was an amazing love story.  He always felt that he had "married up" and that he couldn't believe how lucky he was to have such an amazing wife.  She knew her time was limited so she gave him many instructions on how to grandparent me.  

Tomorrow is Ukrainian Christmas Eve and I will do my best to honour her with the 12 traditional dishes.  I have to confess that when I was growing up I didn't value my Ukrainian ancestry as much as I should.  It was easy when your last name is Ireland.  I wish I had a good reason for not being a loud and proud Ukrainian.  I don't.  I guess it was because I grew up in a predominantly Ukrainian community where people liked to laugh and there was a lot of stupid Ukrainian jokes going around.  I didn't have the sense of humour that I do now and those jokes bugged me.  Regardless.  Since becoming an adult, I am the loudest proudest Ukrainian that you can meet.  

I love everything about being Ukrainian and I know I still have a lot to learn.  I follow the news from "the old country".  The country must be truly special.  Putin has always been obsessed with it, for some reason.  Well, I know what makes the Ukraine special.  It is the people.  Us Ukrainians are compassionate, loyal, joyful, full of laughter and full of perogies.  

It is coming soon and I hope to be the first to wish you Shchaslyvoho Rizdva.  




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