triskellian (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
triskellian) wrote2002-09-16 04:28 pm
triskellian) wrote2002-09-16 04:28 pm
Grandparents
I have one left. She's in hospital, probably dying. I knew she was ill, and I knew she was in hospital, but I had a call on Saturday from going-on-holiday-on-Tuesday parents. The hospital need a number for a relative while they're away. They don't know how long she will live for. They might call me while my parents are on holiday to tell me my last grandparent has died.
The first one, I never knew. My mum's father died when she was three. I've not even seen many pictures. Granny was left with four children (my mother the youngest), on her own, in the fifties, which feels to me further away into the past than I suppose it is. The children were sent away to school, she worked, and never re-married. She died early last year after fading gradually for many years. She couldn't remember conversations, would ask the same question again five minutes later. Sometimes they were questions from years ago ('And you're going to Oxford, dear?').
She was disappointed in me, in our family in general. My uncle, who emigrated to Australia when my mother was a teenager, was the favourite of her children, and she had a favourite grandchild, too. I don't think my mother was very happy with her family until after her mother's death, when the three sisters started spending more time together than they had since the oldest was forced to babysit the younger ones. They've discovered... shared affection, I suppose. Something they had barely noticed before.
My other grandfather - Grandad - died when I was a teenager. He had lung cancer, and we hadn't been allowed to visit for the last months of his illness. I don't know if that was our parents protecting us, or him not wanting to be seen. Unlike both grandmothers, he was still himself to us, to the end. My memories of him are not tainted by having watched him fade, and my childhood love for a man who was great fun and loved his family, is still intact.
I don't know how I feel about Grandma, who is dying now. I know I loved her very much when I was a child. When we saw her often, and she was still a whole person. She's been fading for years as well, but it has mostly been her body abandoning her, although of course that has profound affects on the mind. She doesn't always want to be visited, or to visit. She doesn't want to be seen like this.
Every year, almost since Grandad died, she has promised to visit my parents for Christmas, and every year she has changed her mind at the last minute. Sometimes when my father has arrived to collect her. Last Christmas, she did. Perhas she felt it would be her last. Perhaps it will be. On their way taking her home, they brought her here, to see my life - my house, my cats, my partner. I'm glad they did, although I was horrified to see how she was. And now I may not see her again.
The first one, I never knew. My mum's father died when she was three. I've not even seen many pictures. Granny was left with four children (my mother the youngest), on her own, in the fifties, which feels to me further away into the past than I suppose it is. The children were sent away to school, she worked, and never re-married. She died early last year after fading gradually for many years. She couldn't remember conversations, would ask the same question again five minutes later. Sometimes they were questions from years ago ('And you're going to Oxford, dear?').
She was disappointed in me, in our family in general. My uncle, who emigrated to Australia when my mother was a teenager, was the favourite of her children, and she had a favourite grandchild, too. I don't think my mother was very happy with her family until after her mother's death, when the three sisters started spending more time together than they had since the oldest was forced to babysit the younger ones. They've discovered... shared affection, I suppose. Something they had barely noticed before.
My other grandfather - Grandad - died when I was a teenager. He had lung cancer, and we hadn't been allowed to visit for the last months of his illness. I don't know if that was our parents protecting us, or him not wanting to be seen. Unlike both grandmothers, he was still himself to us, to the end. My memories of him are not tainted by having watched him fade, and my childhood love for a man who was great fun and loved his family, is still intact.
I don't know how I feel about Grandma, who is dying now. I know I loved her very much when I was a child. When we saw her often, and she was still a whole person. She's been fading for years as well, but it has mostly been her body abandoning her, although of course that has profound affects on the mind. She doesn't always want to be visited, or to visit. She doesn't want to be seen like this.
Every year, almost since Grandad died, she has promised to visit my parents for Christmas, and every year she has changed her mind at the last minute. Sometimes when my father has arrived to collect her. Last Christmas, she did. Perhas she felt it would be her last. Perhaps it will be. On their way taking her home, they brought her here, to see my life - my house, my cats, my partner. I'm glad they did, although I was horrified to see how she was. And now I may not see her again.