The place I grew up, did not have any coniferous trees. So when I went on a vacation and saw a pine tree and pine cones for the first time, I was amused. The brown  pine cones , fallen on the ground, made a good keepsake while returning from vacation. I had never noticed the green pine cones on the trees. Years later when I saw a green pine cone for the first time, I was fascinated. 

There is a pine tree near our fence. It is tall and I have always seen the dried pine cones fallen on the ground. I have never looked for any other color or cones. When I saw a green pine cone recently, it caught my attention. “ Oh! “  I thought. It was as though the brown pine cones had taken me to its flashback. I felt as though I was looking at a black and white era. The colored background slowly changing into a black and white one. The texture of the sky and the fence and the house shifting eras. The green cone presented itself as a much younger version of the older, dried and fallen pine cone. It was as though the green pine cone was trying to tell me something.

This incident stayed with me and made me think of things, people and circumstances I never thought of, differently. For instance, my grandparents.  

When my maternal grandmother , whom I admire and love dearly, passed away a couple of months ago, she was 95. All my memories of her are obviously of her as a grandmother. It was difficult for me to think of her as anything but a grandmother. When she told her stories of childhood or youth, I always pictured someone else in her place, not her. She was my grandmother and that is it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Today, in her physical absence, I sometimes think of her as a child or as a young woman. A strong woman who lived her life on her terms. I think of her as a young girl playing in her home with her sisters and brothers. I can even think of her as a newborn, looking at everyone with a twinkle in her eye. 

Similarly with my late grandfather. I could not imagine him without his walking stick and grey hair . “Old” meant grandparents. It is as though they just went from old to older to oldest. How strange! 

My paternal grandmother who is in her late 80’s is one of the most loving people I knew as a child. I wonder what her memories of her grandparents are. Did she consider them as people who grew from being old to older to oldest? I shall ask her the next time we meet.

How many of us can think of our grandparents as children, teenagers or young adults? Even those photographs that we have looked at so many times don’t help us connect to them as anything but grandparents. 

This is what the green pine cones were screaming right into my ears. It was asking me to acknowledge the process that has gone into the making of people of different generations. Let us stop for a moment and acknowledge the youthful and strong people our grandparents were. Let us also acknowledge that part of them (in spirit) that we carry within us today. 

Remembering the young and vibrant versions of my grandparents.  

Please follow and like us: