mormor

In loving memory........

....Monday 22 April 2013 

......It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining and there was blue sky as far as the eye could see. I was sitting in a field in Hertfordshire UK feeling even more nostalgic than usual....

.......Back home in Norway my mormor(:mum's mum) peacefully passed away......

My mormor
22 June 1924 - 22 April l2013

I have just got back from attending my mormor's funeral in Norway.

It has been a really emotional week, as you can probably imagine...

If you've seen my previous post, you'll know: I knew it was coming.....still, that did not by any means make it any easier to cope with the grief of loosing someone so Important and influential in my life....by the time I got the call, I was already feeling emotionally drained.

I felt guilty that I hadn't rushed to her bedside to see her one last time, I felt regret for all the things I should have said to her, but never did, and all the things I'd wished I'd asked her about her life....

All I have now is my memories of a beautiful person that taught me so much, and the realisation of how influential she has been in my life....

Kausland kyrkje....where all our family's big moments: christenings, weddings and funerals has taken place.

I found the funeral a cathartic experience...

Mormor was a very popular person in our little coastal community, and the church was full of people wishing to say their last goodbyes and pay their respect. It gave me a sense of belonging to see my uncles and aunts, cousins and other relatives gathered together...a sense that although we'd just lost our matriarch , we were still a family, and in mormor and morfar's memory we will keep going . And in-between solemn hymns and words of God and Christ, the priest told us all a brief summary of mormor's life.....



The village of Steinsland, Norway, where I, my mum, my mormor and generations before us grew up.....

She grew up in the little fishing village Steinsland, on the west coast of Norway. The daughter of Bertha and Ingebrigt Bakke. Her father owned the local shop and was very much absent from her childhood. In fact her parents later divorced. So from a young age she helped her mother run the shop as well as raise her younger siblings.

She met my morfar(:mum's dad),Thomas Midttveit, just before the war. She was already engaged to a rich young man, but fell in love with the young fisherman when he rowed her across the fjord to get a dress fitted, and insisted on waiting for her to take her back across. So she broke off her engagement, to her family's dismay, and promised Thomas that she'd wait for him. The war (Norway was under German occupation) kept them apart until 1948, when they got married.





 The wedding picture of Kari and Thomas Midttveit, my mormor and morfar.



They had 5 children and made a life for themselves in the house she'd grown up in. Morfar made a living from working on fishing boats, and they lived a simple life: hand to mouth...living of the sea and growing their own potatoes.

Later they bought their own fishing boat and they lived and worked side by side at sea throughout their life...

Their door was always open, and as I lived with my parents right next doors, I spent time at my grandparents house almost every day growing up...I used to love watching mormor cooking in the kitchen, eating toasted brown cheese sandwiches at their table after school and picking flowers in their garden before morfar would cut the grass. I remember the sound of their crackling radio: reports from fellow fishermen of steams of mackerel or cod....they would rush down to their boat with a pot of coffee and some sandwiches and set out to sea in search of good fishing....come rain or come shine! I felt so safe and loved in that house...in their company!!

 They remained eternally in love, always together and the centre for our expanding family..... When my morfar passed away in 2009, mormor was heartbroken, but still remained the strong matriarch of our family.



My morfar's boathouse. It might not look like much, but my grandparents heart and soul lives on in this place.



I take great comfort to know that they are now reunited again ....I have a picture in my mind of Morfar waiting for mormor in the harbour with their boat, a pot full of coffee and a bottle of some quality cognac, ready to sail off into the eternal sea together for one last fishing trip....

My mormor and morfar's relationship has been an inspiration to me throughout my life. Their ability to live and let live without judging, but always with compassion, taught me to be true and humble. They've taught me the importance of family and roots.

  I have too many great memories of them to mention here, but they will always be a part of me....and I am so proud to be a Midttveit-girl!

All I can wish for is a life as filled with love as theirs..

Never forgotten



June