NB: If you are my Sister and it's in the days around the 23rd November, please don't read this post. I love you and that is said for your own good. Love you. x
Dear
November,
I started to
write something for you yesterday. I was
going to tell you it was crap. I was
reading it back as I was writing it and constantly going back and editing and
changing things because I couldn’t make it make sense. So today’s letter is from yesterday and
today.
Today is one
year since my Gran passed away. I don’t
understand how that can be a year ago, but sure enough, my calendar reliably
informs me (just let me double check), yes, it is indeed. I don’t understand where all that time has gone.
More than
that, November, it’s hard to not feel it all over again. I think my mother and sister would agree; I did
an okay job of keeping my face straight for the time I spent with them. The relief I felt when I got home and shut
the door was so unbelievable; my face could do whatever it liked. And nothing happened until a little while ago. I don’t
know why I felt the need to keep a pretence up.
Don’t misunderstand; I wasn’t an inch away from tears throughout. Except for one moment…
My Gran was
cremated and scattered over my Grand Father’s grave. We planted a bush there for her – I forget
the specific type of bush… but it was beautiful! – And in the cut back for
winter, the gardeners of the cemetery have ploughed over it. My sister was visibly distraught. At the time, I wasn’t; it struck me as sad
and thoughtless. The day has wound
on. I’ve busied myself with other things
(mostly distracting myself with the Batman).
But it keeps coming back to me and every time it does, I feel angrier
and sicker than I did before.
I don’t
think I’m that upset about the bush – there was part of it still sticking out
of the ground and, to borrow a very good Yorkshire saying, they were still wick
[Thought occurs, November. Wick, derived
of quick… Like the Iron Maiden song, be Quick or be Dead?] and that means it
might make it through and start growing again in the spring. It’s not the lack of respect that is really
bothering me. It’s not even the fact the
bush is gone.
I keep a
picture frame on my living room table. I
don’t have a single photo of the four of us together as a family, so I keep a
smaller picture of me and my Gran in the same frame as one with my Mum, Sister
and Me from when I was a child. It looks
“right” and has done ever since the day I did it… One year ago today.
It’s hard to
miss someone that you know you can never have again. People would love to remind me, I’m sure,
that I still have my memories. The thing
is though, a lot of the ones that are more readily available are the not so
nice ones from the last decade. I don’t
know if it’s from when my brain broke when I was a teenager or if it’s just a
symptom of getting older, but there seems to be so many spaces in my
childhood. Huge great big gaps. I can’t even ask my family to help me fill in
the blanks because I don’t really know what’s missing. I do have some incredibly fond memories of my
Gran and I am trying to keep hold of them, gripping with both hands so hard I
think my might break my fingers…
Like dancing
around her living room to Abba with my sister one half-term day when we were
kids.
Like her
telling me she was proud of me when I got my GCSE’s and my A-Levels.
Like the day
my sister and I went to visit her in the care home and she knew something there
was no way she could have known about me and when I asked her how she knew, she
tapped her nose, winked and said “An old lady has her ways.”
Like the day
the photo was taken that sits looking at me now from my table.
 |
| The best photo I have of me and my Gran. I think Laura took this... or my Mum. Someone did anyway. |
Terribly
sorry this is late and a bit soppy November.
You’re a melancholy month and I’m in a melancholy mood. I’m sure you’ll forgive me my tardiness, my
sentimentality and if I just excuse myself for a while.
Speak to you
soon.
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