Remember those stories you heard about old women stashing money in odd places?
I've arrived there.
I don't know why I do it.
But view this as a tale from the trenches of old age.
It happens. Eventually.
I received cash for multiple reasons in the last few months and I don't know what to do with it so I hide it. There's quite a bit there (I think - I don't stroke and count it). It just lies there quietly. Waiting for death or dismemberment or fire and flood.
There's an odd comfort to it. I remember Granny digging deep in her underwear drawer and handing me a few notes back in the day with strict instructions to "spend it on myself mind you, not on the childer and not on the husband." I know, she fed me a lot of crazy notions about independence and not having too many children to tie me down. At 32 she faked breast cancer (it was a large painful cyst) to stop the nonsense of adding another twenty babies to her existing six children as her doctor said it would kill her to have more. She lied. But I digress.
Here she is with me on her lap as a baby ( I was her first grandchild and her favourite), my mother on the left of her and my darling Granda at the back. A proud O'Sullivan, his clan originally was from The Beara.
She was originally a Sliney, but word had it very much later on that her mother was the kept woman of the local lord of the manor and her children (or some of them) were in actual fact Abernethys. This bomb was dropped by an aunt at one of the family gatherings.
I need to get my DNA done.
Or not.
ReplyDelete:)
True dat. :D
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Don't all families have this kind of stories? Get your DNA done, if only to satisfy your curiosity, as I suppose it has no practical consequences.
ReplyDeleteBbbbut I could be a Lady Uglemore, capital L please. It might be interesting to have secrets tumble out, yes.
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I often think blood is the least of it.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine having to find a way to protect myself from having to have endless children.
Awful SAW but the RCs had sway over the peasants encouraged by the landed gentry, to keep all in poverty. It was horrendous. Of course when the these poor women died giving birth, the men carried on impregnating much younger wives often abandoning their first families to orphanages.
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Squirreling cash away in the house isn't just for eldsters, apparently! When Everett was packing to move to his house at the end of May, he found $1000 he'd forgotten about. He's 26. -Kate
ReplyDeleteMe and Everett should start a hoarders bank!
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I suspect that many families (perhaps all of them?) have a secret or six stashed in the vault. I know that after my mother's death we uncovered a few and it was definitely tip of the iceberg stuff. There will be some on my father's side too, but that iceberg has left the shore.
ReplyDeleteDNA checking? If will scratch an itch, do it.
Absolutely EC. I remember one old lady telling me when her husband got home from WW2 she told him her baby was an orphan she had adopted. She never told him the truth. So many skeletons in so many closets!
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Man, what a story. Well, good luck with the DNA test, because that could open a can of worms, you know.
ReplyDeleteI am aware but so much water has passed under the bridge now and poverty drove a lot of women in those days to selling themselves. Breaks my heart.
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I have a healing scar on my hand. Today my niece will undergo her second ceazer, sliced open, to bring our great nephew into the world. Her first was a natural birth. I have little to complain about. I don't know how women do it after the first time. They want that whole thing to happen a second time? At least now it is only two or three, and not a dozen.
ReplyDeleteIt's like that old joke Andrew if men had to give birth it all would be one child families. Not to mention menstruation and abortion would be a sacrament.
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Spot on, Andrew. My first child was an emergency c-section but the second one was a natural birth that the doctor said was quite along the ordinary spectrum of birth experiences, but I said O HELL NO. Never again. How can anyone do it again after going through it once? It was hell on wheels. -Kate
DeleteI agree Kate, I never forgot my first birth it was horrific and she was due to be an only but oopsy and get this, the second was a cake walk. I couldn't believe it as I was so stressed out in fearful anticipation.
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You would need their DNA,too, no? Maybe I'm confused.
ReplyDeleteWhat is SAW?
And, have a good week.
Our DNA holds most of the secrets Joanne and our history can be traced. SAW is short for Secret Agent Woman.
DeleteHave a good week too my friend.
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I'm a money stasher too. Some of it has a future purpose and is not to be touched until then, the rest is just stashed away "in case"
ReplyDeleteIn case of what? Well, you just never know what might come up where you'll need a stash of cash in a hurry.
I'd be curious about the DNA after learning that too.
Ah a fellow cash stasher. I am relieved. I thought I was alone in this new old age manifestation, LOL.
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Your granny faking cancer, now there’s a woman after my own heart.
ReplyDeleteHow about treating yourself with that lovely loot? If it’s needed at some time then hide it, by all means, otherwise you could treat it as a special windfall from your dear old granny?
I honestly don't know what to spend it on Friko. My covetous desires have left me finally. A nice state of being. Contented is where I'm at and after rehearsal last night for this play I'm in I was floating a few feet above the pavement.
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I am glad to hear the play is doing so much for you.
DeleteTotally Gemma, I'm like someone reborn.
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Why American Money?
ReplyDeleteOnly stock pic I could find LOL
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I have a stash in my desk drawer. Dunno why. My wife thinks I'm crazy (but that may not be the only reason).
ReplyDeleteWeird isn't it Tom? This is a very recent development for me.
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You could always send the money to me. I can find a lot of use for it.
ReplyDeleteWhy the DNA?
LOL, I should be coming to you with my hand out Ramana.
DeleteThe DNA would reveal the truth about my origins and my great grandmother's impregnations. It was not a love affair but an abuse of power and happened in so many small communities in Ireland under British Rule - a system your country is very familiar with.
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My mother had a little stash of secret cash. During her last days in hospital she revealed its hiding place, told me to use it for "something nice". I bought a gold locket which now contains her photograph, and Dad's. :) I haven't stashed any cash yet - must give it some thought.
ReplyDeleteRe DNA test - it's fun, but most say it's not to be taken too seriously - at least not at the reasonably affordable level. I had mine tested to find out whether it'd throw any light on the births out of wedlock of two of my grandparents. It hasn't done so, but it did throw up 7% Iberian Peninsula and 4% Western Middle East which might point to one unknown father being a tad "furrin" which is what I suspected, from the appearance of some of my Dad's siblings. :)
Fascinating stuff, T. One blogger friend found her son, long given up for adoption close to 60 years before. She didn't do it for that purpose at all. It has been a splendid reunion tho.
DeleteI love your Middle East bit of DNA, very exotic and astral almost.
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I haven't succumbed to little stores of cash as yet, it's all safely (I hope) in the bank, but who knows what I'll get up to as I age.
ReplyDeleteAs for DNA etc, I sometimes wonder if my parents really were my parents, as I'm so unlike either of them. They never understood me and vice versa.
Do you look like your sister Nick? Has she ever been curious? Sometimes one parent pressured the other into adoption or even having another impregnated if they (men) were unable. You could open up a huge can of worms tho as you know.
DeleteAncestry apparently is one of the more honest testers from what I've heard.
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I don't look anything like my sister (who looks like my mum). But I do faintly resemble my father. So maybe I just have some rogue DNA?
DeleteI think we all hope for some rogue DNA Nick! And FYI they say a good test of maternity is our mother's hair, it tends to dominate all heads not just the male line. As I age I have my father's face which startles me. I had always secretly hoped.......
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