My Grandad, telling jokes a few months before he passed away.
Life has been a little chaotic the past few weeks, I'm away from home at the moment and we've recently had a 'change of living arrangement' (to put it diplomatically!) But that isn't what I want to write about.
On Boxing Day (26th December 2017) after a battle with cancer, my beloved Grandfather passed away. Honestly, I'm heart broken. We knew it was coming but the whole thing has really shaken me to the core. I've been a mess. I've not eaten properly since that day and I still haven't got any appetite, my urge to control my surroundings has become almost unbearable, I want everything to be done my way and now! The thing is, you can't control death. No amount of list writing, or hoping or controlling will stop death, it is life's one guarantee.
I do not fear death but I am weary of it. I am often overly aware of the trivial fleetingness of life, my own mortality continues to facinate me. This doesn't make death any easier. It still hurts and I still wish I could undo it. There is only one thing to do when faced with death, and that is to remember life, to reach deep into your mind and pull the juiciest, glowing image of that person's life and hold on to it. You have to remember them (preferably as though watching a film reel from a bygone era, when things seemed to be 'better'). It's at the end of someone's life, especially someone who is well loved, that you realise that the bad bits don't matter. I don't remember anything 'bad' about Grandad, sure he was a grumpy sod sometimes, but he was human - we all have flaws. The things that I do remember are good, they sound in my head like a wistful melody, filled with sighs of contentment and the background noise of a life spent well.
My Grandad ment a lot to me. He played more than a leading role in my life, he was also stage crew, audience and sometimes even the director. He was unbelievably unique and special and to this day I hear his silly rhymes and phrases echoing around the blank spaces in my mind. His voice often has filled a silence that I struggled to break, his stories were beyond epic and his humour only matched by his complete faith in the 'fact' that he is 'the most handsomest man' ever to grace the earth. (A fact I often disputed, everyone knows that I am the best looking here!)
My Grandfather was an avid gardener, he was remarkably green thumbed and seemed to have endless patience for the plants and wildlife he cultivated in his garden. My Grandad could grow anything, the only caveat to this being 'if you can't eat it, I'm not growing it!' I think about this little gardening philosophy and it makes me smile. Not only does it sum up my Grandads attitude, but it's also a wonderful piece of advice. In the garden of Life there are things that feed us and things that look nice. Sometimes something is both, but often the prettier the flower the worse it is for you. At the age of 8 (or maybe 9) I thought that sweet peas were the prettiest flower, drawn to the plant by its fragrance and flower, I didn't stop to wonder if the pea of a sweet pea was edible before eating several pods worth... Turns out sweet peas are not like normal peas and you really shouldn't eat them... They'll make you ill!
What I'm trying to say is, be careful. Listen to my Grandads philosophy and remember, nurture the things that feed you, look after what helps you grow and thrive and don't worry about the pretty things, they aren't important. A beautiful garden is useless in a famine!
And so to Grandad, a wonderful man and brilliant Grandfather, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. There will never be another quite like you!