Past Present And Future!
There’s a photograph of me, my Mum and a baby Florence sat in my Grandma’s garden under a dappled summer’s light. It’s not a good quality photograph, probably taken on someone’s phone, but one which always stops me in my tracks. My Grandma became ill when I was 30 weeks pregnant and passed away weeks later. Florence never got to meet her. Sitting in that garden, on that day when we went to have a final moment, a final tidy and a final farewell before her house was sold, is as close as she got to being in my lovely Grandma’s company which I find so upsetting, they would have loved each other!
I didn’t want to sell her house, I couldn’t understand why my Mum did, but she said she just couldn’t keep something that wasn’t really there anymore, it was making her too sad. And of course my Mum was having to deal with practicalities as well as all of our emotions. I didn’t appreciate quite how difficult a task that was; probate forms, funeral costs, flowers, house clearing, talking to estate agents… My Mum, as ever, was wonderful! It’s not like she knew how to do these things in advance, it was a sudden undertaking just at the very time she was most unprepared – what a job. Today I know that Sun Life have some incredibly useful information on their website for just this sort of thing , what a great tool. It’s uncomfortable thinking ahead but perhaps necessary to be a tiny bit in the know…
Today it may not be as raw or emotional as it was losing Grandma back then but thinking about her always pricks the backs of my eyes. I see things in shops that I know she would have bought for my children and just occasionally her voice will pop into my head with her Aberdeenshire lilt saying something like ‘Oh Ruuuuuuth, really?’ about something she would have disapproved of. Sometimes I can smell her perfume too and I feel her presence which I find very comforting just as I did driving her car which she left me. Last year the poor motor was pushed past the point of its own life and that knocked me all over again about losing her. The thing to remember, I told myself, is that her giving it to me provided me with much as a result. At that time we’d never have been able to afford a car but we so needed one. What an amazing gift! Just as was the money she left. My Grandparents worked hard all their lives providing for their family. I feel very lucky for that and for them – they were fabulous and they were mine.
They never stopped thinking about us or wanting to make our future lives easier. I will remember that as a bit of a guide to life because that’s the exact person I hope to be when I’m old and grey too.
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