Nana Joyce

Since my maternal Grandmother would have turned 114 on July 5, I was thinking about her and how symbolic 114 is, since it often is the age of the oldest person in the world.

In a related concept, in some African Culture’s, there are a couple of highly respected concepts called the Sasha and the Zamzini. The Sasha regards somebody like Nana relating to us, since although she has passed on, she is sometimes still very alive in our minds. For instance any of our extended family who experienced early Pennsylvanian oatmeal mornings in Nana’s kitchen, could probably describe in detail many aspects of her loving personality and the surrounding atmosphere, which she created.

When the last person who is alive that knew Nana in their great memory, passes on, then she will be considered to have passed into the Zamzini, since then, nobody alive will have known her in person.

One reason that this is such an important concept is so that we can accurately gauge history. For instance think about George Washington, Caesar, Napoleon etc.; since nobody who is now alive, actually knew them; it makes it harder to refute questionable items printed (with great authority) in our history books.