"Time We Remember" Yuliya's Grandmother
It is hard to memorize all the stories that my grandmother loved to tell me when I was a little girl. I’ve tried to remember some of them which have stayed forever in my mind. The period of the Great Depression when my grandma was young resembled a bad dream from which everybody of that time wanted to wake up immediately.
My grandmother loved to tell me how they lived during the time of Great Depression. Their family was big enough, she had 5 brothers and 2 sisters and all their family lived in a one room apartment. I couldn’t imagine how it was possible to live in such a place but she told me it was: they separated all room into small pens by piece of material. It was really hard to imagine!
Another thing that shocked me was that they always had lack of food in spite of the fact that both parents and two oldest brothers had a job. She told me how their mother divided between 8 children the loaf of bread and this small piece of bread was their breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Since that time, the sense that somebody from family are hungry stuck in my grandmother’s heart forever. That is why she always feels keenly that somebody from us doesn’t eat enough and she tries to stuff ourselves by food as much as possible. And I think that every grandmother has this special feature which went through the famine and still has the fear to stay hungry.
“Life was never meant to be easy” as my grandma always says and that’s true! Fortunately, there were a positive moments during that time. At those time young people loved to go dancing. I remember she told me how she made dresses herself by spending time and money for materials (at that time she had already worked) and was dreaming when she dress one of them and go to the dancing. One day when she was coming back from work and passing the place where people usually danced, she suddenly saw her younger sister in her dress that she was going to wear that day. My grandmother was so angry, but when her sister saw her she ran away and it happened many times. I think at that time it wasn’t very funny for my grandma, but when she told me this story I saw her laughing eyes.
I am very grateful to my grandmother that she told me such stories of that time. She helped me realize how well and light-heartedly we live today at least we do not need to think about how and where to get food and what I am going to eat tomorrow. But many people from many poor countries are still having a lack of food and clothes and we should help and support them as if they were our own grandparents.
Today my grandmother lives in Russia with my grandfather and aunt. Unfortunately, we see each other not very often but I never forget that time when we all lived in one city and visited each other almost every day. We all have the same dream: to build a big house and live all together as a big, friendly family. I hope that this dream will come true some day and we all will be very happy like each family should be!
