For our fourth Throwback Thursday read some inspirational quotes from Jacqueline, Amélie’s grandma.
One of our readers, Amélie, told us about her grandma, Jacqueline: energetic, passionate, and always ready to gossip with her grand-daughters. So we decided to give Jacqueline a call, and had a little chit-chat with her. Nothing like a formal interview. Just a casual talk about her life, her activities, her thoughts on ageing… Here are some excerpts from this phone call we’d like to share with you.
About her husband:
“Well, I was 17, he was 20… He left for the army then… You know how I used to call him with my friends ? “The dummy of the 5th floor”. He would always sit on the window ledge, just as Pierrot sitting on the moon. There was no barrier, he could have killed himself…”
(Note: 60 years later, she’s still living with the “dummy of the 5th floor”.)
About youth:
“You know, when you’re young, you do silly things. When I was 13 or 14, I would go up to the 6th floor of my building, go out through the attic room’s window and walk on the gutter. I was a bit of a boisterous child to be honest! (…) When I chat with my grand-daughters, I’m not like “Don’t do this, don’t do that!”. I think each experience is unique.”
About elderly life:
“I think you have to find something you’re interested in, to start a new life, a “third life”. One of my friends, she’s 75, she started to take english classes. She’s also enrolled in a bicycle club, a hiking club, she’s using a tablet… She’s even a member of a dating site! I mean, it’s like young people. Now it’s quite common to be part of a dating site at this age. They are meeting during activites, in groups. That didn’t exist before.”
About Internet:
“I think Internet really brough something new. It’s amazing. Thanks to it, people can travel easily, by using BlaBlaCar for instance. When I compare it to when my mother was 75… there was nothing back then!
Facebook and Skype are really useful to get updates from my grandchildren. Also, if they tell me “Grandma, I’m going to visit this or that city this weekend”, I can lookit up on the internet and discover more about those cities too. I really think this is amazing. I travel thanks to the Internet.
I also play online: Scrabble, draughts… I’m playing against people who are in Portugal, in the West Indies… I also chat with them sometimes. I really enjoy it! I could spend 2 hours in a row, just playing and chatting on my computer.”
About fashion:
“Well, I try to stay coquette. My mother was a dressmaker. She used to create tailored clothes for me. When I saw some piece I liked in a magazine, she would make it.”
About ageing:
“I think that mentally, you don’t really age. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m 75. When I say “I’m 75”, it does sound old, but I don’t think it is. Some decades ago, I think that to be 75 was… old. But now things have changed. You’re better off being 75 now than 40 years ago !
I really think it’s all in your head. Your personality remains the same… Last week, I was in a shop, and the owner told my husband “Your wife has such beautiful eyes”. Though he was old, he was still susceptible to beauty. Life doesn’t stop, you still pay attention to people’s charm. And you can restart you life, even when you’re a widow.
Plus, thanks to your grandchildren, you can also look to the future more easily. You want to live, you want to see. And well, of course you want to stay in this world to meet the future babies ;)”
Thank you Amélie for giving us the opportunity to talk with your grandmother, and thanks a lot Jacqueline for taking the time to share some stories with us! We truly appreciate it 
Want to share your story too? Submit your grandparents’ portrait here!
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