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Justin’s grandmother, Susan’s Mom, certainly is great, but in this case I’m talking about Justin’s literal Great Grandmothers. Until recently both were still alive, though he never met Granny, my grandma, and unfortunately he will never get the chance. Anna Katri Aalto passed away on February 3, 2006, in her hometown of Mikkeli, Finland, the same little town she was born in on the 4th of July, 1917, nearly 89 years go. Though she had been ill and her passing was not a surprise, for me it was quite a shock to lose her, especially since she was so far away and I was unable to see her one last time and say goodbye. I am very thankful though that we did get to see her fairly recently, in 2002, at my cousin Jenni’s wedding in Germany. There Granny got the chance to meet Susan, and we spent a wonderful week in the Black Forest with lots of family around, some of whom I hadn’t seen in twenty years. Here are a couple of pictures from that great week, and if you ever plan to visit the Black Forest do yourself a favor and stay a few days at the Berggasthof Linde, which is owned and operated by my cousins Kati and Jenni, their husbands, and their families. (Hi Kati, Jenni, Klaus, and Jürgen!)

Susan and I had been hoping that Granny would recover and hang on through the summer so that we could visit Finland with Justin and see her again, but it was not to be. I’d still like to make my first trip to Finland since the late 70’s, I think it was, but my Uncle Kimmo and Aunts Kaija and Eeva are visiting this summer so we’ll wait a bit, maybe until Justin is old enough to remember a trip like that. We shall see.

In remembrance of Granny I’ve combed through the Colevault photo archives for a few classic pictures. Since we’ve always lived a continent apart all my memories of her are necessarily confined to vacations, either us visiting her in Finland or her visiting us in California or Texas. My parents took me to Finland during the Summer of ‘69 (cue the Bryan Adams!) when I was roughly 9 months old and we were living in Amsterdam, and I have some great photos of me with Granny, my uncles Kimmo and Antti, and my 27-year-old parents. (27?? What the hell was I doing at 27? Nothing noteworthy, I can assure you!)

I also saw Granny during the Spring of 1981 when she visited us in Houston, soon after we’d moved back there after a short stint in Illinois, just across the river from St. Louis. According to the photographic evidence available to me right now we did the following during her stay: visited Johnson Space Center (where Jason and I climbed all over the displays), celebrated Jason’s 11th birthday, swam in our pool, had a big party on our patio (featuring plenty of drinking and smoking! Mmm… second-hand smoke!), went to the beach, washed the cars, and took a day trip somewhere, possibly San Marcos, with my old friends the Hafners. We also took a road trip back to Illinois for my Mom’s graduation from SIU Edwardsville, where she completed her journalism degree just prior to us moving back to Houston. During that trip we visited some Civil War monuments, which Jason and I climbed all over. Without supporting photographs I would not remember anything about any of this. The whole camera thing was a pretty good invention. Anyway, I have scanned many photos from these two trips and you can find them in the Misc album in the gallery.

Note: during the late 70’s, I’m going to guess it was 1979 (cue the Smashing Pumpkins!), the family took a trip to Finland but I can’t seem to locate photos or negatives from that trip. All I remember is eating Granny’s homemade apple sauce and fresh raspberries that we picked ourselves and playing soccer with some local kids outside Granny’s apartment building, despite a significant language barrier. That event is marked by me running full speed, presumably after the ball, not looking where I was going, and slamming my head into some sort of construction barrier that was blocking off part of the field. My forehead swelled up with fluid to the point that it looked like I’d had a water balloon implanted there. I think I blacked out too. Oh, and let’s not forget Jason and I traipsing through a bramble of nettles, not having any idea what they were, and spending the next several days in agony nursing painful sores all over are legs and arms, our only medicine being fresh apple sauce and raspberries. The above-referenced Wikipedia article says that nettle stings “are rarely seriously harmful” while earlier mentioning that a New Zealand variety of nettle has “been known to kill horses, dogs, and at least one human.” Let me assure you, though it may be lesser known, the mutant Finnish strain of nettle eats New Zealand nettles for breakfast. I don’t know how many dogs and horses have succumbed to the dreaded Finnish Nettle, but Jason and I were THIS CLOSE to becoming its first human victims. (Isn’t it interesting that the only clear memories I have of this trip involve serious bodily injury?)

These are just a few of my memories of my grandmother, Anna Aalto, better known as Granny. May she rest in peace.

On the other side of Justin’s family is Susan’s Grandmother, remarkably still going strong and celebrating her 97th (!) birthday today. It’s easy to remember her birthday as it’s always tax day - almost as easy to remember as Granny’s 4th of July birthday. Halmoni (the Korean word for grandmother, pronounced HAR-MU-NEE) is truly a GREAT Grandmother, still mobile and lucid and feisty, and not in the least bit shy about voicing her opinions. I’ll always remember that she was nice to me from the day Susan introduced me to her extended family back in ‘97, when Grandma was a spritely 88 year old. Justin is her third great grandchild, after Emily and Lauren, the daughters of Susan’s cousin Henry and his wife Kathy. She has two more coming too, as Susan’s other cousin Yun and his wife Jinhee are expecting twin boys soon. (Yikes! Good luck with that, guys!)

Tonight there will be another in a long line of giant Park family dinners to celebrate Halmoni’s birthday, at a Korean restaurant in The City that we’ve eaten at about 300 times. Everyone will eat way too much kalbi and kimchi tchigae and naeng myun and Susan’s eldest uncle will give a speech about Halmoni and the noble and illustrious history of the Park family. And knowing Grandma, we’ll probably be doing the same thing three years from now for her 100th birthday when Justin will be old enough to remember his great Great Grandmother. Boy, will that be a party! Happy Birthday Halmoni!!