How my grandma shaped my life

My grandmother was one of the best people I have had the honor of knowing in the course of my life, and certainly the most loving.  She was my mother’s mother and she was always very close to us. My opinions of her are very subjective because I have a very deep attachment to her, which continues after her death.  My maternal grandmother died on the 8 March 2010.

Grandma was the central person in our lives for a great many years. She acted more like a mother surrogate to me and my two younger sisters when we lost our parents. Due to the circumstances of the Romanian communist regime, both of my parents had to have full time jobs so they relied on my grandmother to raise us until we went to kindergarten. I was sent to my grandmother at the age of two months and she raised me until I was about four. Then I came back to Tulcea, the city where my parents lived and worked, and I was sent to a kindergarten and then to school. Still, for every single school break and holiday my sisters and I were sent to my grandparents in the village of Murighiol, Romania. We always looked forward to it because my grandmother and grandfather provided the safest and warmest environment we had ever experienced. There, we always found a lot of light, peace and love. We felt very attached to them and we all suffered from separation anxiety for the first few weeks back in school in Tulcea.

My grandmother was an army housewife, who followed her husband wherever he was sent for work and raised three children. When they retired, they returned to their native Murighiol. She was loving and caring but a good disciplinarian too. She taught us to love and protect each other, our parents and our relatives because family is very important and will stand by us in moments of great trials.  She taught us to be disciplined and hard-working because we have a responsibility towards ourselves and the society as a whole, to be productive individuals. She made sure that we had our responsibilities in the household without affecting our natural childish playfulness. We gladly helped her and Grandpa around the house because it seemed a grownup game. She taught us to love and give of ourselves with dignity . She taught us to be proud of who we are and humble enough to recognize the merits of others. She taught us that what you sow is what you reap.

But above all, my Grandma revealed to us the existence of God, a God who is loving and forgiving. She managed to instill this concept in us in spite of the Communists, who discouraged religiousness. Thus, we have survived all the trials that life has laid out for us and have done so with full courage and capacity to love. I can only hope that one day I will be as inspiring a parent for my children as she was for me.

Otilia Bujor.