In your introduction you touched on the thought of developing an unreliable picture of your grandmother, are you able to speak a bit extra about that?
In my e-book, I contact on the thought of developing my very own understanding of my grandmother. Since I’ve solely met my grandmother a couple of occasions earlier than her dementia progressed, I used to be by no means capable of spend a lot time along with her and ask her about her life. In consequence, a lot of what I do know comes from tales instructed by family members. However the factor about oral storytelling is that, as time goes on, recollections shift and folks recount issues in several methods. Folks recount tales primarily based on the context of who’s within the room, the place they’re, and when they’re telling it. There isn’t a goal actuality, however there’s a fact to the feelings that folks really feel and bear in mind once they inform tales.
What I do know of her now shouldn’t be essentially her fact, nevertheless it’s my subjective fact about her. With the photographs in Wa Leng Wa Hor, one can have a look and make assumptions about who she was, however I do know her to have been a fiercely cussed and impartial matriarch who was typically grouchy in her final years of life however nonetheless had her personal moments of pleasure.
