I got a phone call from my mom today that is the one type of phone call that everyone dreads. She had called to let me know that my gran had passed away.

This is not a complete shock, as my gran has been steadily declining for the last few years, but it is still not great when it finally happens. We are going to miss her, even though we didn’t always see eye-to-eye.

So, who was my gran?

Gran

My gran, Olive Johanna Levine, was born in Cape Town, South Africa on the 15th Feb 1930, to Joseph Asmus and Johanna Reid. She married my grandfather, Robert Levine, in the early 1950′s, and had 3 kids, one of which was my mother (rather obviously).

My gran was a person who was never scared of hard-work, and all through the years she could never sit still for a second. She always had to be doing something.

She also had very strong opinions about everything, which, since I was young, I used to my full advantage. I used to enjoy winding her up by asking her controversial questions, often just to get her strong reaction. This particular trait earned her the unofficial nickname of “The Old Battleaxe”.

My gran has never had particularly good health while I was growing up, but in recent years she had really deteriorated quite badly.

We spoke to her via Skype a few days before Christmas, and Claudia and Cole spoke to her again on Christmas Eve. We remarked that my gran really looked like she has aged severely in the 8 months that we have been in the Netherlands, and the last time we got to see her.

We will miss her…

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