Day 8: We remember them (#30daysofHecate)

“Tell me again, a story of an ancestor of your bloodline or of your heartline, a story you have not shared before…” (30 Days course prompt)

This is a photo of my grandma on her wedding day to her second husband (who is still alive). Her first husband was the love of her life and he died from colon cancer at age 59 (in 1989). The next year, she married one of his lifelong friends and they were married for more than twenty years until her death from sudden, aggressive pancreatic cancer in 2013 (at 83). I remember this wedding clearly, in the living room of the home she’d shared with my grandpa and in which they raised their three children. I remember my mom and her siblings as being a little strained and tense. I remember my grandma laughing and almost giddy. They kept the wedding a secret from all of their friends and had a family-only ceremony and then an after-party with a group of friends, to whom they then announced their marriage. I remember standing next to my grandma at the front door of her house, greeting guests. She’d turned her new sapphire wedding ring around so the stone was hidden in her hand and she showed it to me, saying, “see, now no one will see it accidentally before we make the announcement!” I remember feeling like this was a “weird” or “funny” (not funny “ha ha,” but funny as in odd), because I’d never seen her in this mood before–kind of silly and excited–I didn’t know how to experience her this way, like she wasn’t as grown up as I’d thought.

Source: Woodspriestess: Grandmother Prayer | WoodsPriestess