People almost always remark that my grandmother was "smoking hot".

You don't know the half of it.

1. Correct.
2. Grandpa was just one on a menu. Multiple boyfriends during WWII.
3. She said Canadians were prudes.
4. In her 70s she had a sizzling romance with an ex from the war.

He actually tracked her down from England when he heard she was single, because he was a widow too. They romanced for years back and forth between Canada and England.

We embraced him warmly.

5. After he died, she struck up a sizzling romance with her neighbour.

The other man was barely in the ground before she hooked up with this neighbour. She didn't even attend his funeral!

She was in her mid 70s by this point.

Having a full on physical sexual relationship. Again.

She told me she valued this thing she had with her neighbour because unlike her UK boyfriend, when she had enough she could have the house and her bed back to herself.

She would signal it was time to go and he would go back to his house.

With UK boyfriend, she was stuck.

This continued until she died.

This time, she died before a boyfriend.

And guess what? He came to her funeral. That was ironic.

He sat in the front, weeping. I knew grandma was saying somewhere "men are pathetic".

I'm sharing this not because I'm mocking or "slut-shaming" my grandmother.

I tell people about it - as I did at the time - because I was proud of her.

She wouldn't let men own her: sex and some love but no ring, no living together.

She kept living.

She liked sex. A lot.

She liked loving. A lot

She laughed intensely at the absurdity of life's dramas day to day. The life of the party quite literally.

Because, she was conditioned by the war to assume there is no tomorrow.

You've only got today.

Do your duty for King and country. Join the fight.

But when you have time, laugh hard. Love hard. Live.

(Fin)