At The Water's Edge
Looking For Clues 10: I Really Wouldn't Have Wanted To Have Been Anywhere Else
Looking For Clues isn't the place where I want to talk about family matters but the following seems relevant.
After Christmas I returned to university for a few days to meet with tutors, discuss re-taking my exams and to reserve a place for the following year should I pass. I wasn't pleased to be back but resigned myself to the fact that for some bizarre reason that was what I was doing. It was however good to see some old friends whom I stayed with.
Whilst there I spoke to my father on the phone. He told me my grandmother had had a stroke and was in hospital. I still remember his voice now: terse and cold, the kind of voice used when I was in trouble. I think it was his way of trying to keep control, keep himself together. My grandmother was apparently stable in hospital and there wasn't any need for me to rush home.
When I did return home a few days later it was quite a difficult time. My grandfather could barely look after himself and so either my father or I would visit him daily (my grandparents lived about an hour's drive away). I think after a couple of weeks (it may have been longer) my grandmother was discharged from hospital. I decided to stay with them and help my grandmother settle back in. She was in a frail state. Even before she went to hospital there wasn't anything of her and now she was even more fragile. As she leant on me as I'd walk her to the bathroom or the bedroom I was conscious of squeezing her too tightly for fear of crushing her. It was all quite difficult. And she must have found it distressing too, particularly I suspect, her perceived loss of dignity: she wouldn't have wanted her grandson seeing and doing what I had to do. She needn't have worried, it didn't bother me, I just wanted to help.
I don't think it is right to give the details here but two days after being discharged, as I walked her from the bathroom to the bedroom, she collapsed and died in my arms.
My grandmother and I were close. I can't say that we really talked but she had looked after me for the four years after my mother had died, cooking me lunch and being there when I got home after school. If my life had followed the path it was supposed to have done I wouldn't have bet on being able to be with her when she died and although distressing and traumatic, I really wouldn't have wanted to have been anywhere else. In some ways it feels as if events conspired for me to be able to be there. I don't know if that's true or not, I'm just grateful that I was.
