Marysia’s Great Age I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak a little bit about Marysia. My daughter, Eliza, recently watched a cartoon in which she learned that “the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago”. When she heard this, she asked me “65 million years ago. Is that when Marysia was a baby?!” At the age of 94, Marysia was probably the oldest person I’ve know personally, but even she was not quite old enough to remember the dinosaurs! Another image, a comforting one, has also been provided by Eliza, who suggested that perhaps, after we leave this world, we go to live with the cloud babies. The cloud babies feature in another cartoon and they are sweet creatures who spend their days painting rainbows, polishing the moon and whizzing around the sky. We all have our own personal narratives about what may happen after we leave this life and, personally, I do like the idea that we paint rainbows, polish the moon, and whizz around the sky. Indeed, I can imagine Marysia, who had such a zest for life, embracing an energetic and fun-filled afterlife. I am an anthropologist and, as well as studying cross-cultural beliefs in the afterlife, we also study kinship. In the UK, if I mention that Marysia was “my grandmother’s cousin”, people may regard that relationship as being rather distant. Of course, we all know that kinship ties are not based on the nearness of the blood relation, but also on the social relationships that we have with each other. In many cultures and in many languages, the siblings and cousins of one’s grandparents are also considered to be grandparents, and the same terms are used to address them. Sadly, I was only eight by the time I had lost all my grandparents on my mother’s and father’s side. So, I do regard Marysia as the closest that I had to a grandmother for most of my life. Along with my mother, Barbara, and uncle Robert’s parents, she was the only person from our family of their generation to settle in the UK after leaving central Europe. Marysia did frequently talk about the experiences of the early part of her life and I always felt that it was very important to her that the younger generation in our family understood what had happened. I think many people found her remarkable because, despite those experiences, she had an incredible zest for life. I have many lovely memories of her – it seemed to me that she found everything “wonderful” or “interesting”. She was interested in painting, in reading, in history, in education, in people from all around the world. She loved my children a lot and, for this Christmas, she asked us for a recent photograph of them, which we took to her just before Christmas. I was very anxious that they would break all the delicate things in her very elegant flat, but she was not concerned at all and was just delighted to see them, and to listen to Eliza singing songs to her. As well as being very loving towards her family and friends, she took great interest in the people and the world around her. Indeed, during the last conversation that I had with her on the telephone, she told me a story about how she had befriended an Indian couple in a café in Brent Cross and how they had paid for her lunch. And she said “it is because I am extraordinary”. So I said, “yes, Marysia, it is because you are extraordinary”. And she said “yes, I am” (and laughed!). So, let’s remember an extraordinary person. I am very proud of Marysia and I am very proud to be related to her.