Those days people talk about....

You here everyday people talking about those moments in life, those turning points, when suddenly everything you thought you were changes. Well I have always been a person to dismiss clichés and put these mad moments of those peoples life’s down to exaggerated thought, until I lost someone I love. Losing my Nan has pulled me so much, strung my emotions so high that the girl who came out the other side is only a hint of the girl before. A girl who, admittedly, was innocent to all the chaos and wonders of the world.1

Funny still, its amazing when you sit down and think about the past that you realize just how much you missed. I sit here now writing about something Ive kept so well hidden, and now, 2 years later, the thought of her name can still send a tear down my face. 2

My Nan and I had always had a bond that I could never really explain, a closeness that needed no reassurance with kisses, cuddles or cards. We just understood each other enough to not even ask. Being one of three sisters I fought for this woman’s time, though now I think about it, it seems I never had to.3

One or twice a month our family would pack up and spend a whole weekend in my mother’s home town, it was packed with memories for my mum. Friends, sisters, brothers and ever so often we would encounter those she would like to forget. She hadn't had an easy childhood; she had so many brothers and sisters in that one council flat. I never ask how many because there has always been an unspoken tension between the siblings, it had always seemed a deep situation so I never had dared to ask. When it was mentioned my mum’s eyes would show a pain, these moments I saw my mum as a child not a parent, it was a vulnerability she wasn’t ready to share. I always imagined that one day when she’s old that we would sit alone with a cup of tea and she’d tell me all about her life, my Nan, my family. Though I wondered also whether the thoughts of those days would be enough to finish her there and then.4

My Nan’s husband, granddad seems too personal as I never met this man, died when my mum was very young. She only remembers the young police man who came and sat with my Nan and held her as she cried. I always thought that my Nan became strong after that day, I saw that as her last tear. She wasn’t going to let anyone knock her family, she was strong and house proud and she would survive. 5

On these visits to the town we would always go to Nannies, bearing gifts of flowers, school reports, me I always brought a kiss and a cuddle for my Nan. A present that my sisters never appreciated, yet it made my mum warm every time. We’d all sit there with her, she marvel in our growth and shower us with offers of tea and biscuits. She’d offer, though she wasn’t strong enough to herself venture into the kitchen. We had an understanding though, she’d be kind enough to offer, Id be sensitive enough to insist I made it. I remember her living room so strong, the scent, the furniture, even the way the light would highlight the years of dust that had collected in the musty air. She kept her handbag by her side all the time, in it her glasses, her purse and her ‘smelling salts’. Its something I don’t understand but for some reason those smelling salts are the one thing that I remember most about this lady I held so close, how they represented in someway, her way of getting on with life despite its flaws. The sniff of the powerful crystals was enough to knock out a 7 year old school girl, but my Nan strong as she was would inhale them deep in her chest and they gave her this burst of vigor.6

It was synchronized our visits to the house, predictable like my Nan’s life. Except for one day, one moment, one second, a sequence that’s so painfully scrawled in my heart that it’s vivid enough to replay again and again. This day when I left, last in the line, my Nan grabbed my hand and gripped it with a life long secret of weakness. “Please don’t leave me”, she said, “Please”. Her words pierced my ears, the anguish of her life poured from her. This woman who had always stood so burly lay limp in my arms, old as she was I could see her as a twenty something mother mourning the loss of her love.7

My mum took my other hand, pulled me further and further away from my Nan, but no matter the distance my eyes were still fixed on hers. “don’t go, Please, don’t leave!”, she struggled for any grasp she had left of my hand, “Becky! Please!”8

My name, she needed me, no one else, she wanted me. I let her hand go, and she needed me. 9

The next day she was gone. Dead. Passed away.Death is sucha hard thing to say...how can you be sensitive. Dead. Its so cold. My Nan knew she was going to go, death was the one thing that had scared this lonely woman and I had left alone to tackle its touch. How could I?10

They never let me see her; they never let me go to the funeral. There are four weeks of my life that I can remember. I was dead inside, shocked through. I acted as though this pain was everyone else’s burden, like it wasn’t any thing to do with me. What shocks me more is I never cried. Not one tear for all the love I had for her. Guilt was inside my body, like a disease eating through me. That time I could have stayed longer and didn’t, I could have hugged her more, I could have told her I loved her. 11

My mum was no mum no more. Again she was a child. Mourning the death of her mother. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through, if my mum wasn’t here the grief would kill me, my mum must be dying inside. My sister thinks we’ve lost a little piece of mummy when Nanny died, there’s a resentment she hold that it was her mum and no one else’s. She tends to my Nanny’s grave like the wounds of a broken child, such care in the water, the light, the soil. Sometimes my mum will take down a bottle of ginger beer, my Nan’s favourite drink, and pour it over the soil. She likes to believe that some place my Nan can taste it, and the comfort in that is enough to over rule the madness of the whole ritual. There my Nanny lies, in the ground. She’s not there. I know. I don’t tell my mummy though.12

That day she went, I don’t know where, I just know that she’s strong now. I know she has her love, and the wounds have healed. I have to believe that or I will just cry. I’ve learnt that love is in ever pulse we pump, and no matter how strong you think you are you can’t escape it. I warn you all that each love you treasure is hanging on a will, and you must steal each kiss, share each cuddle and do all you can to let them know you love them. Hold you’re love ones close, because you never know that might be the last hold you’ll have.13