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The legacy of my Mormor

Yesterday I realized that I inherited something from my Mormor. "Mormor" means mother's mother in Swedish and it's what we call our grandmas in my mother's family. My mormor came over from Sweden when she was a girl. I have never been close to her. I hate to admit that when she died a few years ago, I was living in Chile and I was more upset about my mom being sad than the actual loss of my mormor. Part of my distance to my mormor might be geographical, she always lived on the other side of the country. Or it might have been other factors. But whatever it was, we never shared a close relationship.

My mother told me stories about her. I knew she had been an archivist in the field of physics. I knew she had found love later in life with my grandpa John. I knew that the women in our family are strong and commanding women and that she was the root of that legacy. But I until yesterday, I hadn't realized that I had inherited something even more particular from my mormor.
My friend Danielle is studying library science at UCLA and she mentioned that she was reading an article for a class that might be about my mormor's contribution to the world of archiving. I shouldn't be surprised, my family tends to pop in strange places like academic articles about archiving. But it struck me as my mom mentioned my mormor "liked organizing things, and she adored brilliant men" that maybe I inherited more than just my hair color from her.

As I've gotten older, there are parts of my personality and character that are coming out. With my new job as coordinator at the English institute, I have realized all the more how much I love organizing and administrating. In the last 5 months, I have created and implemented a new English program for one of our major clients. I have a team of 9 teachers working for me and about 70 students in the classes. It's a ton of work (14-16 hour days were the norm for about 3 weeks) but I love it. I love the multi-tasking that is required. I love making order out of chaos. I love seeing something I created work well. Maybe, just maybe, I get this from my mormor.

And as far as adoring brilliant men... yep. I've always known that a man's brain is more attractive to me than his face. I would love to find a man who I can listen to and marvel at. There is little sexier than a brilliant man.

While I wasn't very close to my mormor while she was here with us, it makes me smile to think that I may have something special of hers. A little piece of her legacy.

Comments

KristyWes said…
Love this. And miss you!
Anonymous said…
Wow! Is that really Mormor? I thought it was your mom. Love you, Dad
Anonymous said…
That pic does look exactly like your mom! Glad I could help with your realization. Lucky you for inheriting the organization gene. The archives profession tends to attract organized folks or closet hoarders. I'm unfortunately more like the latter :)

Danielle
Anonymous said…
I want to meet Mormor

~Diana

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