Thanks to JOHN TOWNER for making this photo available freely on @unsplash

Gran lived a cliched life.

She’d once lived a hippie lifestyle and remembered the days living on the community farm in the north of the state fondly.

We were driving along the road, and the sun broke through the canopy of the forest and shone down on the road.

“There’s a light, over at the Frankenstein place” she uttered as he approached the bend in the road.

“What was that, Gran?” I asked.

“The light it reminds me of the Rocky Horror show. Loved that show, we had the record you know. We’d play it at night and Barney and I would sing along with the songs.”

Having said that I watched as Gran, who was showing more and more signs of dementia drifted away into a time of long hair, flowered shirts and skirts and a life where nothing seemed to get them down as they were free of the constraints of society.

I resisted the temptation to ask her who Barney was. Every now and then she’d say something I took as a lost memory, and she was never that forthcoming about a lot of her past.

Grandad had died some years before, and we’d taken it upon ourselves to look after Gran as she aged and began more dependent on us.

It was clear the Rocky Horror Show was playing in her head as she suddenly came out with: “How’d you do, I see you met my…” Then her voice would fade away, and her face would light up as some memory flooded her conscious self.

“I fancied myself as a bit of a performer,” she said as we drove closer to home. “I could have made it too, we did a show up on the farm one year, and Barney and I did a few scenes from the show. Big hit we were, and what fun we had.”

I found it hard to believe my Gran could have been the extroverted character she claimed she once was as I knew her as a little old grey-haired lady, more often than not off with the fairies but always with a spark in her eye.

“The Frankenstein place,” she muttered again as we drove into home, “Look there’s a light!” she exclaimed as we pulled up and she looked at the porch light.

Written for: https://lifeafter50forwomen.com/2019/12/01/what-do-you-see-6/