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Grandma gets married.
My Grandma, Maria, married her husband Nikolay when she was a young girl in 1977, 42 years ago. As two youngsters in a remote Ukrainian village near the Polish border, the two got married after waiting on each other for a long time. Erickson would describe this period in their lives as Intimacy vs Isolation. Their drive to be together was stronger than all of life's drama aimed at keeping them apart, causing the isolation which we all fear and try to avoid. -
This is my handsome Grandpa!
He was a beaut! -
Tragedy (Generativity vs Stagnation)
In 1996, my grandmother lost her son, Vasily, due to brain injury. You can see the handsome fellow next to my young mother in the photo. At the productive age of 42, my grandmother must have lost her Generativity, as Erickson would call it. She must have felt she did not do enough to protect her son. Perhaps at some point, she felt the flow of her care became stagnant for just a moment and she lost him then. Her youth became stagnant, as worry turned her hair grey soon after he died. -
Baking bread
My grandmother is far into her golden years now. A stage Erickson calls Integrity vs Despair. After having nine children, loosing two of them, hoeing fields and fields of beetroot all her life, and loving us through it all, I can confidently say she is living and aging with integrity. She is not in despair over her long past youth, but instead satisfied and fulfilled with the happiness that only a lifetime of honest hard work, patience, and a deep devoted relationship with her Creator can bring.
