Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 October 2004 20:52:51
Tonight I have had the news that my sister's mother-in-law passed away in her sleep last night. I won't even be given time off work to go to the funeral because she's not deemed a relative, but this lovely lady was the closest thing to a grandma I've ever had. She had me to live with her when I was about five while my mother was in hospital for major surgery; I grew up with her as part of our family as we spent so much time round at her place; she loved me unconditionally and it made me feel so good inside because her eyes would light up when I walked into the room.
She was delighted when first I took my boys to visit her. Tiddles remembers it well - she was so delighted to meet him that she cut him a massive slice of chocolate cake. He valiently made it to the end and she insisted on giving him another piece. I tried to dissuade her, but she said "You must let me spoil my new grandson" My adopted gran welcoming my adopted son with an outpouring of such generosity. And my adopted son so enchanted by this lovely old lady that he forced down another piece of chocolate cake and half a packet of jelly babies despite really not wanting them at all - purely because it made her so happy.
As she grew older, her grasp of reality diminished. She told tales which had firmly established themselves in her memory of the time she danced all night with Lord Snowdon at a ball. But she was such an adventurer that you never quite knew whether she might have done!
I saw less of her as I grew older - something I regret now, of course. But the love and affection was still there. She shared a name with my mother and the two were great friends. When my mother died, Edith wrote me the most lovely letter - and echoed her words when she next saw me. "I know that nobody could ever replace your mother, and I would never even try, but I hope you'll let me fill a little of that gap". To my sister, living closer and caring for her as she aged, she became a mother - to me a very special lady who encapsulated her own role as honorary grandmother (being almost a generation older than my mum) and also a blessed reminder of my own mother.
Edith, I don't think I ever told you how special you were to me. I don't think I ever told you how much I loved you, the way you told me again and again. I don't think I ever really realised how much I'd miss you until you were gone. Go and be with God; join your husband George in that place where there'll be no more pain or sadness or disability or Alzheimers or cancer; Rest in Peace, Gran.