The Time is Nearing to Say Goodbye All Over Again...
When my grandad died in Febraury, I discovered what Family actually meant. It was the first death I have had to witness first hand and I saw my father cry, my uncle cry and my grandmother destroyed and that in its self was heartwrenchingly hard to deal with. I realised, quite frankly, that being surrounded my them helped overcome this.
My grandad was sick and had been for several years. He had a condition called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (P.S.P.) and, like any kind of Palsy it was slowly taking away his mobility, as well as his eye sight, his speech and ability to swallow...so when he died, we finally had the closure that he wasn't battling against his body anymore. It was over, and he was now - where ever it was - at peace.
Yet when he died, living suddenly changed. The world was suddenly so chirper, so tainted with all this colour that felt so dismissive and made grandad's death feel sort of redunant. I went to work - to keep busy - and was choked on how no one knew, customers were all so happy and smiling and it hurt being surrounding my all these people who just didn't "care".
His funeral came, and I remember standing in the kitchen with all my family, all waiting for the funeral party and feeling dread. It - even know - makes my stomach knot when I imagine seeing the car come down the street, seeing the coffin and knowing that grandad was in there and this would be the last time he would see the house.
One man, a competely stranger stood on the roadside with a hand on his heart as the cars passed. And - whoever it was - I thank him for it. He was a much loved person, so brilliantly friendly that there was a lot of guests and that helped. It meant something bright. And being able to say goodbye then, was almost like a huge weight was lifted and gone. The minister believed so blindly he was in "heaven" and - though not religious - I think everyone else in the chaple knew that too.
And somehow 6 months has rolled by. Spring came and it bled into summer and I felt better. Normal. Then, like a tonne of bricks - several days ago it collasped on top of me and I was left realising all over again that he is gone. It's odd.
...and in a couple of weeks, the whole family will be embarking on a trip to Cornwall, in which we will be spreading his ashes in a place he loved and had hundreds of thousands of memories of. Again, we are going to have to say goodbye. The Final Goodbye. The one that counts because - though his body is gone, he no longer sits in his chair at my nannas house - after this, we will not have anything left of him except our memories. No headstone to visit, not urn to cherish.
Nikki
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