The Cycle of Life?

On Tuesday night at 11.15 my Gran passed away. She had a bad turn on Monday night and I was able to spend her last day with her. She went peacefully. Everything was how it should be but my life will never be the same again.

She was 90 years old last November. She had had a good, healthy and contented life. She used to say she was very ordinary. She was never ordinary to me.

I think it is mind blowing to think of the changes she must have seen in her lifetime. Born in 1917 during the first world war, living through the second world war- she lost her dear brother in the war, he was 21, she could still cry over that, she never really got over it, the inventions, the technology, the people. So much change.

My gran was such an important person to me. She was the stable adult in my childhood, my brother and I were very close to my Grandparents and lived with them for long periods when my mum was in hospital. She was my constant, without her my formative years would have been very different.

Ten years ago my dad moved to Australia (without a word to us), my mum re married and has a new life, my brother moved to London (although he was still very close to my Gran and visited often, he just wasn't physically here). It just left her and me. We spoke on the phone every day and we would go out for lunch and shopping every Saturday. I loved the time we spent together, I never took it for granted, I always realised how lucky I was to have this time with her.

In recent years her body became more frail although she remained fiercely independent, her mind however was as sharp as ever. She made me laugh, she was so caring. She was a very special lady.

And now she's gone. The day I have dreaded for a long time arrived and I am left trying to be grateful for the time I had and trying not to focus on the huge gap that there will now be in my world.

This week has been the hardest. I wish I could explain the connection we had or put into words the sense of loss and loneliness I am feeling right now. We needed each other. She was my family.


Tomorrow is outcome day for this cycle. I haven't tested. I don't suppose I have to explain how much more this cycle means now.