Quote:
Originally Posted by wwkayaker
If I could go back to when my grandparents were alive, I would have so many questions to ask them.
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oh man, this is a huge regret. I even mentioned this tonight after a few beers with my friends. All of my grand parents are gone but my husband's nana is 88 and I ask her so many questions. She lived in England during WWII so has so many interesting stories. I wish that when I was young I asked more questions. I wrote my Oma a letter when I lived in Holland. I told her how much I admired her for moving from Holland to Canada in the early 50s with nothing but a suit case and a 2 year old in her arms. Oma and Opa got on a boat in Rotterdam, arrived in Halifax and were shipped west in a train to Edmonton, the "heart of the new west." I couldn't imagine doing that, all your possessions in a suit case for the rest of your life.
I was lucky enough to go to Holland and meet a lot of my extended family. They are all very welcoming and I know so much about my background, about why I am the way I am. How we have the traits that we have. If you have extended family somewhere in the world, go and meet them. They are strangers, but you would be surprised at how welcoming they are and how similar you will be. I don't regret meeting my extended family, I regret hearing about my Oma and Opa from my extended family and not from my Oma and Opa. They have incredible stories too, both lived in northern Holland during WWII. There are many stories of my Oma working in a hotel that Nazi stayed in and who she served on many, many occasions.
My Oma's oldest brother died from stepping on a land mine about a year after the second world war. My great aunt, who is about 70 years old now, told me about this about 7 years ago. She still remembers the day this happened like it was yesterday. I have been to the house he was brought too, the road it happened on and I've seen his grave in the small village they lived in. There are still remnants of the war there to this day. There are German bunkers in farmers fields, machine gun bunkers. It is just a life that we can't understand.
So, I really, really regret not asking my grandparents enough questions. If you are still young enough and can, do it. Get as much info as you can out of your family, ask hard questions, ask things people won't ask because you are curious. It is worth it, and the worse that can happen is that they say no or that they don't want to talk about it.