Moving Deeper into the Story - Grandma
Asking questions to create a more meaningful book.
My grandma Libbie Holik and I shared many family patterns which I shockingly discovered Christmas Eve 2019 when I completed my first Genogram. In doing an exercise about mapping family patterns, I realized in many ways, I was living her life. The unfinished business, the dreams. On some level I already knew this as I had been speaking and writing with her on the other side for several years. She, along with my cousin James who died in World War II, helped guide me to create a new life in Europe with a Dutch man named Johan. He was 14 years older than I with (deceased) parents who survived the war while living in Rotterdam as young adults. They had passed before we met but oh the war trauma his mother carried from the other side. You can read the article about the Dutch mother in-law here.
I’ve been writing pieces of my grandma’s story for my next book. As I stated in an article yesterday about my grandpa, these pieces have been journaled or written for a few years but I’m still not satisified. So I decided to go deeper into the questions I was asking so I could create a better story and of course, do some personal healing. You can read the article I shared yesterday about questions I began asking about my grandpa’s service.
What Do I Need to Know?
I guess I really began writing to my grandma on the other side in 2013 after I moved out and was getting a divorce. I sat under my crabapple tree often when I was feeling overwhelmed and stressed. I wrote her questions asking how she managed to raise three boys on her own while grandpa was at war. (My dad was the bonus when grandpa came home). I asked how she kept her sanity. Who was there to help?
Then when I met Johan and he was slowly dying from cancer and other complications due to his treatment after we met, I asked her how she managed the unknown. How did she handle the fact her husband was ill and there was nothing she could do. Along the way in our conversations I began to notice some similarities between her life during the war and mine with three boys and a sick husband. But it wasn’t until I had space from that husband in 2020 and beyond that I realized so much more.
Today as I work on this section of my next book where I tell the stories of Libbie and Joseph, Jennifer and Johan and how our lives were woven together, I still have questions. Here are a few that are helping me go deeper, see things more clearly and write a better story.
How did she manage the stress and emotional toll of single parenting while grandpa was at war? How did she handle it with four boys, one an infant, after he was locked up in the Veteran’s hospital?
What fears did she have when grandpa was at sea? How did she cope with long periods of no communication? How did she deal with the fact he may never come home?
What was their reunion like? Was grandma excited to have her husband home after his discharge? Did she know, did he send letters, explaining he was struggling mentally? Or was it a shock to learn of his diagnosis?
How did she help her sons deal with this change in their father upon his return? The man she sent to war had bright eyes that saw into the past and future. I believe he was like me - connected to the other side, other realms, and energy. Yet the man who returned home was beaten down and had lost his sparkle. His eyes were dead. His knowing and magic locked deep inside. Is this one reason why the older boys left the family after marriage and wanted nothing to do with their mother or two younger brothers?
How did she cope with the anticipated grief? The knowing that she was married yet lived as a single woman and that her husband would eventually die. The question of when and how was something she waited 17 years to discover.
Did she develop PTSD herself from the waiting, unknown, and trauma she endured when grandpa returned?
Answering the Questions. Finding Answers.
I carried so much of my grandma’s unfinished business, trauma, her voice in my head wishing for one thing in particular, and patterns all my life and didn’t realize it until that Genogram. Actually the voice I kept hearing in my head of a line being repeated wasn’t fully realized until the summer of 2022. Once I realized it was her, acknowledged it and released it, I never heard it again.
There also came a day that summer when I asked her to release me from continuing to carry her burdens, patterns, and pain. I did some energy work and asked to be released. A few hours later I was at my son’s baseball game getting things out of the back of my car. I was ready to close the hatch when an amethyst (purple) bracelet I wore on my right wrist, in between two others, caught on the car and shattered all over the parking lot. I knew then grandma had let me go. Purple was one way she showed up for me, along with me smelling her face powder or just feeling totally loved.
Even though grandma released me, she’s still here. We just have a different relationship now. One I hope to deepen now that I’m in a different energetic space. Not only do I wish to tell grandpa’s war story, but also hers. Women have been silenced too long and their stories almost never told when we talk about our veterans. She also deserves a voice - separately and as it weaves into my own story. I know with her help, I’ll be able to both heal our lineage on different levels and write a story that will help many.
Are you asking deeper questions or just skimming the surface? What have you discovered as you went deeper?