No One Leaves You When They Live In Your Heart And Mind

My grandmother passed away on Friday at the age of 94.

Since a diagnosis of throat cancer at Christmas, there has been a steady decline in her health. Both times we've been able to go and see her, I've been very conscious that there was a good chance it would be the last time. In truth, I've watched the gradual decline of a highly intelligent and vivacious woman over the past ten years. First her eyesight deteriorated to the point where she could no longer read, then an attack of shingles took her lower still. Gradually, she began to lose her memory, to the point where she was like a goldfish, repeating the same thing every three seconds. Whether it was - as she herself claimed - the shingles that ruined her memory or just the normal run of ageing, we will never know, but she gradually went from a good-humoured and benevolent woman who at eighty years of age would regularly go on five mile hikes in the country, who was informed about the world and its goings on and as independent as it is possible to be to, for the past few years, the frail (and often petulant and selfish) child who depended on my mother to minister to her most basic needs.

I am very conscious that when we would go and see her, we were seeing her at her best. Seeing me, my wife and kids was a treat for her that would lift her spirits and there were flashes of her real self in there. I knew that she found these visits very welcome but also exhausting, and some of her worst behaviour would come after she'd had a visit. My mother would bear the brunt of this petulance, and I know she found it draining.

Given the drawn-out timescale of her final decline, I find myself not really sure how I feel. I remarked to my brothers that I've learned that I'm not good at pre-empting how I will feel about things. I thought I knew how I would feel when I got married. I thought I knew how I would feel when my first child was born. I didn't. It appears I've been fitted with a b-movie brain that scripts everything far too simplistically.

I'm glad it's over and my grandmother is no longer suffering; any sadness is for me and my family, not her. For the past two and a half weeks, she's been on morphine and not eating and we all knew that the end was imminent. From what my mother tells us, we don't think my grandmother was particularly aware of what was happening, but there's not really anyway to cast suffering in a good light. When my brothers and I spoke last night after getting the news, we remarked on how we'd already said most of the things to say. The grieving has been going on for a long time; for years we'd opined that it would be no bad thing if our grandmother were to die, such was her quality of life. With how it's been since Christmas, it's just been a waiting game.

I do feel sad, of course, but so far it's a quiet, reflective sadness. I have no faith to cling to. My grandmother has not gone to a better place; her consciousness has ceased to exist with the cessation of biochemical activity in her brain. What is left is simply meat; it might look like my grandmother, but it is not her. I tell the children that Great Nana has gone to be part of the universe, and in a simplistic sense this is true; the molecules which comprised her body will be broken down and will go on to interact with others and may even become part of another living being, but this is not any sort of continuation of her existence.

I don't find myself feeling nihilistic though. Nana always said that for whatever she'd done for her children, she would be repaid if they did the same for their children. Although I'm one generation removed from her, I cannot but pass on at least some of her wisdom and generosity because it is a part of me too. As reflected in the title for this entry, how we live on is in the hearts and minds of those who remain - I would add 'and in our DNA' too, though that's more prosaic - and this is where I know I will be able to find my hope and my comfort.

OYJ - 5th May 1915 - 12th March 2010

This House Aches

I'm home alone, although not in the sense that of being a child attempting to fend off retarded burglars, you understand.

No, I'm home alone in the flat while my wife and daughter are 120 miles away starting a new life in Lincolnshire. I'm doubly home alone because I had booked this week to work on a major project report from home, away from the hustle and bustle of the office. Lucky old me, I chose a week when the gas board had chosen to dig up our entire street to replace the gas main. As you might imagine, it's very condusive to hard work.

Hang on a minute, did I just say that K___ and Olivia are starting a new life away from me? Yes, I did. Fortunately, it's just short term, whilst the flat gets a bit of work done on it, and then put on the market. This is another factor contributing to the piece and quiet around here; my mother is decorating. My mother is an excellent decorator and has done so professionallly. Every so often , she's interupting me to ask whether I have x or y tool anywhere.

It's a situation that is not made more easy by the fact that my mother has taken the news that we're moving away extremely badly. My mother is a strange person. She has a lot of good qualities, and I can think of many people that have seen her at her best and would be quick to praise her from the heavens. She also has some less good ones, including the fact that she appears not to understand that it doesn't matter how justified a person might be in feeling aggreived at something, it is quite difficult for others to form a view, or even rectify the situation if nothing is said and they are unlucky enough to be incapable of reading that person's mind.

Not least of her less good qualities is her neurotic insistance that if we go and live somewhere else, that's it, the family is torn apart for good. I imagine that many of those who read this will be thinking, '120 miles? That's nothing!' - particularly the Americans, who probably drive that distance to work each morning. My mother seems to feel that car journeys of more than two miles are a feat of near-impossible human endurance and that she cannot possibly be expected to suffer them to come and visit. This is not a new thing, she's been like it for years, but it is nevertheless a major pain in the ring.

Fortunately, this doesn't rule out us coming to see them - something we're entirely happy to do - which solves the problem, surely? Ah... well... now... No, apparently it doesn't, because having someone to stay (even if it is your own family attempting to ensure that you have a good relationship with each other) is inconcievably traumatic.

Oh, for fuck's sake... It gets even more ridiculous than this, but I won't go on.

My mother is gutted that we're going. We understand that; we knew she would be.

My mother is gutted that we're going but even she understands why we want to move somewhere where we can afford a really decent house, and where K___ has been lucky enough to find a job that will pay her more money, give her more responsibility and which has in turn been lucky enough to find her, because she's capable of improving it beyond their wildest possible dreams. She understands all this, yet she seems to be putting up obstacles and objections to her seeing us and Olivia.

Of course, as phenomenally ridiculous as this is, I do understand why she's being like this, that it's a defence mechanism, but it seems so obviously irrational that I can't work out why my mother, a highly intellegent person in many respects, seems incapable of seeing this and doing something about it. I have no desire to lose contact with my family, not even my currently infuriating mother, because even if many do not, I do know and appreciate her myriad good points.

Meanwhile, my dad, who is also gutted that we're moving but who is more than prepared to drive to Lincolnshire, and would be happy to have us in the house, is placed in an invidious position.

I go to bed each night in my suddenly empty house, knowing that we have made the right decision for our family but hating the situation I am now in, and knowing that time and distance will discover that it is perfectly possible to still be a family over the miles, albeit a differently-shaped one than my parents may have envisaged.

It will all work itself out with time, but for now, it isn't moving fast enough.

You May Walk With Your Baby In The Afternoon

Well, we woke up to blazing sunshine again. It was a positively glorious day and so we started out with the plan to go for a walk with the baby as it was such a lovely day. The whole thing turned a bit epic and we ended up walking along the sea front for 6 miles to the large town nearby. Miss Olivia was pretty much oblivious to the whole thing, using the trip in the buggy as the excuse for her afternoon nap as she often does. We did stop on a bench half way and give her a bottle so she learned about a few new things - sunshine, waves lapping (we were lucky that the glorious weather coincided with the tide being in), children playing on the various beaches along the way. What is a family for if not for having a family day out?