My Nan
Yesterday my Nan died. Yesterday I became Grand parent less. Yesterday a woman whose unconditional love has allowed me to grow in confidence, simply ceased to be.
What can we say about Grandparents that can ever explain what they mean to us? The love a Grandparent has for a grandchild and vice versa is in many ways the greatest love we can ever experience. It's purer than that which we experience with our parents. That love is complex and difficult and at times (teenage years) fraught. We try and change our children, children try and change their parents. 'They don't understand me!' screamed as a door is slammed. Children don't come with a hand book and they don't come with a pick by numbers personality. A parent, although in love with a child, can often find it hard to like them. Find it hard how to know how to deal with them. Grandparents (well the good ones) are very different.
They come with the experience of being a parent and making the mistakes that go with that. They have a deep love for their own children which is often hard to communicate through the complexities of helping someone grow up. So that love shines most brightly through the love they have for their grandchildren. My Granddad was, I am told, a man who didn't like physical contact. He wouldn't give cuddles. I turned up and forced myself on him with the confidence only a precocious, toddler with red hair could have and turned him into one of the cuddliest men I have ever known. If I was in the same room as him for more than three seconds without cuddling him he would let me know about it. It never occurred to me as a child that anyone in the World wouldn't want to cuddle me or be cuddled. And so a man who kept people at arms left was knocked over with charm at this child who wouldn't take no for an answer. Well, who wouldn't even ask.
My relationship with him is vastly different to my Fathers relationship with him. Much the same that my relationship with my Mum is vastly different to her relationship with my niece and nephew. I can't stress enough that I am not trying to diminish a parents role by promoting what a grand parents role is. They are different and therefore, incomparable but they do come from the same place.
They come from an unconditional, almost unfathomable love. Sometimes that love is mixed with confusion and misunderstanding. With a Grandparent, for the most part, what you get is the love without the complications. They love and understand their grandchildren better than a parent can because they are one step removed, looking at them through the experience of their own child rearing and also seeing what they sometimes couldn't see with their own children. A person. A whole person. A different and fascinating little person who is made of their own flesh and blood.
I don't have children. I don't think I want children and I don't feel a void where there should be children but I do always think I would love to have Grandchildren and if I don't have children, it won't be them I miss but the grandchildren I could enjoy in my later years that I will miss. I hope I have enough children in my family to be a surrogate granny to them.
And it's in this place that I sit here and try to contemplate my life without the four people who have allowed me to grow up in the safety of their love and warmth and kindness. But most importantly, without my Nan Smith who looked after me for years. Who cried on the phone to me as I cried and rallied to her that my father didn't love me when he left my Mum. Who held me when I needed to be held. Who asked me only two weeks ago, with huge pride, when she could see me acting. Who loved me from the day I was born until she closed her eyes on Saturday night and slipped into a sleep she would never wake from. Who was the last man standing as grandparents dropped around me.
What's been the hardest part since I heard the news is the response of people who don't know me well or her. 'That's a good age', 'She had a good innings', 'Was her time to go'. Now I know that people simply don't know what to say in the face of grief, more so when it's someone you simply work with. But those responses, having never struck me as strange before, today seem like the most alien response in the World. Yes, she was 85 years old. Yes, her family have all gone before her. Yes, she was ill and getting sicker but her impact on my World and those around her was no less because she was in the age bracket where you expect her to die. It is no less horrible for those left behind. And that made me think about what that says about our society as a whole. We all know we don't treat our elderly with the respect and care they both deserve or need. We know that we are behind other countries in our care of the elderly. Is that why when someone who is 85 passes away we simply shrug (yes, that happened to me yesterday) and say, 'Ah well...'? Because a life when lived stops being important when we hit 80 or 70? It stops having a value because it is on the wrong end of the spectrum? Because no matter how many times we can tell ourselves that we will lose our grandparents, those early loves of our lives, or our parents, when we do it is no less hard. I lost my first grandparent when he was 69 years old. He was the first person I knew who died. It seemed like an adventure at the time, strange as that may seem. I was nine years old and got a little caught up in the excitement and the drama of death. It wasn't till years later that I actually truly felt his death. I was lucky that it was many, many years later that I lost my second Granddad. It was much more instantly traumatic. But in the aftermath of his death came the flourishing of my Nan and the increasing closeness of my relationship with her. Through his death, what had been a very over bearing (albeit charming and funny depending on who you ask) man, gave way to the quiet, strong woman behind him. And it was a joy to see her embrace that independence. When my maternal grandmother died, she had drifted to a place where I didn't exist before she went. I had allowed myself to be the person I am berating here, I simply ceased to try and look after her because she was in another country with a fading memory. I took my leave of her before she took her leave of me. It sickens me to write those words but it is the truth. And today, as I face the loss of my closest Nan and final grandparent, I realise how little I appreciated the lost years of my Irish Nan. She was simply in the bracket where she was expected to die. I treated her the way I am rallying against people responding today. Ah well, she had a good innings. I have overlooked what my own mothers grief for her Mum must be because, well she was ill and old wasn't she? Yes. And she was still her Mum. And she was still a woman. And she was still important.
Let's not forget that. If you have a grandparent or a great aunt or uncle, remember that they may be nearing the end of their life but it is a life, it has value, they have value. The loss when it comes is too shocking, although obvious. Never again will a person look at me the way all four of my grandparents did and I might not have always appreciated what that meant but today I weep for that.
What can we say about Grandparents that can ever explain what they mean to us? The love a Grandparent has for a grandchild and vice versa is in many ways the greatest love we can ever experience. It's purer than that which we experience with our parents. That love is complex and difficult and at times (teenage years) fraught. We try and change our children, children try and change their parents. 'They don't understand me!' screamed as a door is slammed. Children don't come with a hand book and they don't come with a pick by numbers personality. A parent, although in love with a child, can often find it hard to like them. Find it hard how to know how to deal with them. Grandparents (well the good ones) are very different.
They come with the experience of being a parent and making the mistakes that go with that. They have a deep love for their own children which is often hard to communicate through the complexities of helping someone grow up. So that love shines most brightly through the love they have for their grandchildren. My Granddad was, I am told, a man who didn't like physical contact. He wouldn't give cuddles. I turned up and forced myself on him with the confidence only a precocious, toddler with red hair could have and turned him into one of the cuddliest men I have ever known. If I was in the same room as him for more than three seconds without cuddling him he would let me know about it. It never occurred to me as a child that anyone in the World wouldn't want to cuddle me or be cuddled. And so a man who kept people at arms left was knocked over with charm at this child who wouldn't take no for an answer. Well, who wouldn't even ask.
My relationship with him is vastly different to my Fathers relationship with him. Much the same that my relationship with my Mum is vastly different to her relationship with my niece and nephew. I can't stress enough that I am not trying to diminish a parents role by promoting what a grand parents role is. They are different and therefore, incomparable but they do come from the same place.
They come from an unconditional, almost unfathomable love. Sometimes that love is mixed with confusion and misunderstanding. With a Grandparent, for the most part, what you get is the love without the complications. They love and understand their grandchildren better than a parent can because they are one step removed, looking at them through the experience of their own child rearing and also seeing what they sometimes couldn't see with their own children. A person. A whole person. A different and fascinating little person who is made of their own flesh and blood.
I don't have children. I don't think I want children and I don't feel a void where there should be children but I do always think I would love to have Grandchildren and if I don't have children, it won't be them I miss but the grandchildren I could enjoy in my later years that I will miss. I hope I have enough children in my family to be a surrogate granny to them.
And it's in this place that I sit here and try to contemplate my life without the four people who have allowed me to grow up in the safety of their love and warmth and kindness. But most importantly, without my Nan Smith who looked after me for years. Who cried on the phone to me as I cried and rallied to her that my father didn't love me when he left my Mum. Who held me when I needed to be held. Who asked me only two weeks ago, with huge pride, when she could see me acting. Who loved me from the day I was born until she closed her eyes on Saturday night and slipped into a sleep she would never wake from. Who was the last man standing as grandparents dropped around me.
What's been the hardest part since I heard the news is the response of people who don't know me well or her. 'That's a good age', 'She had a good innings', 'Was her time to go'. Now I know that people simply don't know what to say in the face of grief, more so when it's someone you simply work with. But those responses, having never struck me as strange before, today seem like the most alien response in the World. Yes, she was 85 years old. Yes, her family have all gone before her. Yes, she was ill and getting sicker but her impact on my World and those around her was no less because she was in the age bracket where you expect her to die. It is no less horrible for those left behind. And that made me think about what that says about our society as a whole. We all know we don't treat our elderly with the respect and care they both deserve or need. We know that we are behind other countries in our care of the elderly. Is that why when someone who is 85 passes away we simply shrug (yes, that happened to me yesterday) and say, 'Ah well...'? Because a life when lived stops being important when we hit 80 or 70? It stops having a value because it is on the wrong end of the spectrum? Because no matter how many times we can tell ourselves that we will lose our grandparents, those early loves of our lives, or our parents, when we do it is no less hard. I lost my first grandparent when he was 69 years old. He was the first person I knew who died. It seemed like an adventure at the time, strange as that may seem. I was nine years old and got a little caught up in the excitement and the drama of death. It wasn't till years later that I actually truly felt his death. I was lucky that it was many, many years later that I lost my second Granddad. It was much more instantly traumatic. But in the aftermath of his death came the flourishing of my Nan and the increasing closeness of my relationship with her. Through his death, what had been a very over bearing (albeit charming and funny depending on who you ask) man, gave way to the quiet, strong woman behind him. And it was a joy to see her embrace that independence. When my maternal grandmother died, she had drifted to a place where I didn't exist before she went. I had allowed myself to be the person I am berating here, I simply ceased to try and look after her because she was in another country with a fading memory. I took my leave of her before she took her leave of me. It sickens me to write those words but it is the truth. And today, as I face the loss of my closest Nan and final grandparent, I realise how little I appreciated the lost years of my Irish Nan. She was simply in the bracket where she was expected to die. I treated her the way I am rallying against people responding today. Ah well, she had a good innings. I have overlooked what my own mothers grief for her Mum must be because, well she was ill and old wasn't she? Yes. And she was still her Mum. And she was still a woman. And she was still important.
Let's not forget that. If you have a grandparent or a great aunt or uncle, remember that they may be nearing the end of their life but it is a life, it has value, they have value. The loss when it comes is too shocking, although obvious. Never again will a person look at me the way all four of my grandparents did and I might not have always appreciated what that meant but today I weep for that.
At least you knew your grandparents, time and geography mean I only really have a vague memory of my maternal grandad.
ReplyDeleteDon't mourn her passing, enjoy your memories of the times you had with her.