Elsa the Lioness

If you don’t understand the title of this post, may I refer you to Born Free. However, there is another Elsa, who is a lioness in human form.

In my previous post, I saluted the women who cleared the way for women’s rights, for acts of heroism and for taking a stand against patriarchy and misogyny. Sadly, it doesn’t feel as if they, or the new torch-bearers, have made much progress sometimes.

However, no list of women who inspire me (and there are many) can begin or end without talking about Elsa, my grandmother. She needs her own post. She needs her own book, really, but for now, all I can manage is a post.

Elsa was born in 1919, shortly after the war to end all wars had wiped out a generation of young men, not only through the ravages of war, but because many were shot for "cowardice". This is something I'd like to consider for a future post.

She was born to parents of very different backgrounds. Andrew Israel, descendent of Polish Jews, and Susan Cilliers, descendent of Great Trek and Afrikaner icon Sarel Cilliers. I wish I knew more about them.

In 1943, during another war even bloodier than the one before it, she married Joop, an immigrant from the Netherlands who arrived here in 1936 to escape the inevitable march of the Nazis. They had three children: Renee, Peter and Louise.

Elsa is no stranger to loss. In 1945, Elsa’s younger brother Paul was killed during the war at age 21. In 1978, Elsa and Joop suffered the worst and most unspeakable horror that any parent can endure – their child died. It was a long, slow and painful death from breast cancer, in those days not as treatable as it is now. As Renee fought valiantly for her life and her children, Elsa stepped in and helped raise them. Those children were me and my brother, aged 10 and 7 at the time of her death.

There is no question that this event has cast long shadows in my life. I am fairly certain that the roots of my GAD can be found in this traumatic event. But losing a parent is something. Losing a child, something quite different. Elsa put aside her own loss, and heroically helped a single man with two small children to raise those children. She has always been my inspiration, and she taught me so very, very much. Among the many things I learnt from her, here, randomly, is a list of the lessons that I treasure:

• You don’t have to give birth to someone to be a mother. In every sense but the biological, she was and remains my mother.
• Always marry a handsome man.
• A dirty sense of humour makes a woman more attractive, not less. Even a lady can say Fuck.
• If you can endure the horror of losing a child, you are truly a tower of strength.
•  It’s never too late to start over, or to learn something new. Well into their 80s, Elsa and Joop emigrated to New Zealand. Elsa also skypes and knows how to use a cellphone and computer.
• Always wear clean underwear. This may seem like an odd lesson, but it stuck, so it must have been important.
• For better or worse are not just words. Elsa and Joop were married for 63 years before Joop’s death in 2005. She stayed by his side, shoulder to shoulder, and his last words to her were “look how beautiful you look”.

This list could go on forever, but I want to say granny, I love you, now and forever. You are truly a woman of the 20^th Century, and I couldn’t have done any of it without you, either.