Helga Eagle was one of the most amazing women that walked the planet Earth. I know many people probably feel this way about their grandmother, but in my case… it’s just true. Gramoo, as I called her, was incredibly special and inspirational. She passed away approximately three years ago and with her departure, left an incredible legacy and memories and lessons that still mold me each day.
One of my favorite things about Gramoo was her love of travel. She was a globe-trotter before it became cool. I loved visiting her and hearing her stories and exploring her home that could have easily been confused for a world art museum. With all its artifacts and treasures from her travels, that home and those stories is exactly the model I’ve always grown up aspiring to. One of the pieces that seemed central to the tracking of her journey was a special world map that she had taped to the wall of her office. When she passed away, I asked the rest of my family if I could keep the map. They graciously agreed.
Since her passing, I’ve safely kept the folded map in a drawer in my home. Every once in a while I would bring it out and tell a houseguest about the magic person that was my grandmother. I’d point to the little red circles I’d made on the map when I inherited it to mark the places that my grandmother had been. I longed to frame the map, mount it on cork board and display it with my own pins- taking special note of the times in my travels that I was overlapping terrain my own Gramoo had once visited. I also take special glee in the spaces and marks that I get to make that are my own.
With the nudge of some special people in my life who on accident inspired me to take the framing of this map into my own hands, I recently crossed #4 off My Life To Do List, Frame my grandmother’s world map.” I love that the map is actually older than I am, having been printed by National Geographic in 1981. It still shows Czechoslovakia as one country! Until I have that fantastic home with all the artifacts from around the world, I will gladly display this map and the few trinkets I’ve collected along my own journey.
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So now you can display the map – which is in itself a piece of art. And your home already shows your love of art and travel. Thanks for taking your readers on the journey with “Gramoo”… a very special Lady.