A little background...

My grandmother was born June 2nd, 1916 in Przemysl, Poland. According to her, Poland was a place of cotton candy and eternal sunshine before the war (WWII). Her childhood memories are happy and they seem to have been an upper middle class family. She had an older sister and brother.

She married my grandfather when she was 21 and had a baby (my uncle) at 22. Granddad was 8 years older than her. The war started when she was 23 and she was left to care for her son, her mother, and her mother-in-law when my grandfather went with the Polish army.

Just before the end of the war...she was taken (with my uncle) to Germany and never saw Poland again. 8 years after my grandfather and she were separated, they found each other again and he moved her to Scotland, where he'd been living. Shortly afterwards, my mother was born. 7 1/2 years after her, my aunt and a year and a half after her, my uncle.

Eventually, they all moved to Canada where all the grandchildren, except the first, were born.

Run!

So, I drove my grandmother home the other night. We were at my mother's house and left at around 9...after dark. My grandmother's house faces a ski hill off in the distance. As I was opening her door for her, I noticed that the ski hill had spot lights out...you know, the hollywood kind to let you know ~something's~ going on up there. Absentmindedly, and I suppose wanting to draw her attention to something so she would get out of the damn car faster, I said, "Hey, Nanny. Look up there...the spotlights. They're very pretty right now against the sky."

She stepped out of the car, adjusted herself, looked back and remarked, 'oh...yes.'

"They look pretty, don't you think?"

Without missing a beat, she replied, "Oh..yes...very pretty. Reminding me so of when Germans come during war. We would see dis light and we would run and run."

And then shut the door and nonchalantly toddled off to her house.