Happy 100th

The year is 2005 and next month is June which is rapidly approaching what would be my grandmother's birthday and had she lived this would be her 100th year, yes she was born in 1905, which to me always seemed so unreal. 100 Years ago, but she died back in late 1990, 15 years ago, still making it to a ripe old age of 85. When I think that I had the great luck to be able to meet and live with someone from that era it is such a great privilege. She was born, raised and never left the island of Barbados, I'm sure she was the great great maybe another great grand daughter of some slave and the daughter of hard working country folk. She lived at a time and in a time when Barbados was a whole different world, a world of black nannies and their white charges, a time when you walked everywhere, no buses trains and a time where life was a whole lot different. She was able to live that time and make it all the way to 1990, 15 years shy of her century. She got a little senile as her days drew to a close and if my uncle wasn't such a bastard maybe she would've trucked on for another 15, crossing the ribbon on that century race that so many Barbadians seem to win or complete. I wonder what she would have been doing or what she would've been like on her 100th year? She wasn't the most warm person and could be difficult as hell sometimes to get along with but I thank God that I had the good sense to not hold a grudge and would ask her about her life and question her or what it was like growing up in the 10's, 20's and 30's on such a small island; the stories were fascinating and unreal for someone almost born in another century altogether. So as I sit here in 2005 I suddenly remember my grandmother's lost century with strangeness and nostalgia.