It was 3.42am according to my alarm clock and the clickety-click was the sound of a staple gun putting up obituary notices on the telegraph poles opposite our house.
When I got up the next morning sure enough the notices were there. I took a quick look and saw that the deceased was 102 years old. Not a bad innings really!
Later that afternoon when Jack came home from school he relayed the story that one of his classmates had been quite upset - she'd seen the notice which heralded her great grandmother's demise. A sad way to find out about the departure of a family member. One might have thought that her parents would have told her.
However, she was pleasantly surprised later in the day to find her 102 year old great granny still very much alive and well. The lady who had departed this mortal coil shared Jack's young friend's ancestor's name, but the printer had made a mistake about her age, she wasn't 102 at all....
She was 105.
Amusement aside though, I had the privilege to meet the older lady a couple of times. As recently as the summer of 2008 she would sometimes sit outside in the sunshine on the forecourt of her grandson's filling station, dressed in traditional white headscarf, blouse and long black skirt, watching the world go by and passing a hello with customers. I realised that she was quite elderly even then, putting her at perhaps as much as 90-92 years of age, but she certainly didn't appear even slightly frail, and had she not been in traditional dress I would probably have given her nearer 80.
My respect to the lady in question, and condolences to her family on their loss. A little more Greek history now laid to rest.
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