I saved her weather book
The funeral was last Friday. We left the house in Sheffield at about three in the afternoon and arrived at about ten that night; as we entered Eastbourne a light fog closed around us, shrouding our view in grey.
It suddenly dawned on me what we were actually driving to the closer and closer we got, the lump tightening in my throat the nearer and nearer we got to the house. Everything is so familiar to me there, and I felt like we’d been out all day and when we’d arrived Nan’d be waiting for us with hot drinks.
We walked up the path in the dark, and my aunt greeted us. We stood in the hallway, awkwardly at first, until we mulled around with cups of hot tea in our hands. Miles said how everything looks the same and yet so different, like you can’t really grasp what has happened.
I wandered upstairs, then downstairs again, then back up to the living room on the second floor. I felt like a ghost and floated over to the attic stairs that climb up to what used to be my Nan and Granddad’s bedroom and sat near the top of them, my chin held in my hands.
Cheryl (my aunt) said if there was anything we wanted from the house, as a keepsake, to just note it down on a list. I really didn’t want anything because it all belonged altogether in this house right here. Cheryl said she didn’t want me wishing I had taken something six months from now, so I took the list and looked at it and wandered about some more.
I felt really bad looking at things in the house after that for quite a little while; like I was just eying up things to take even though I wasn’t. I wondered what would happen to all the photographs (my Nan's dining room is a proud shrine of photographs of the family) and I sat on her bed. I noticed these boxes on her dresser and opened them, carefully. They were filled with jewellery and I carefully placed them out on the bed. I looked at them all; everything was plastic and pearls. She had this one quite wild necklace of big brightly coloured plastic gems all dangling in different shapes and sizes off of a plastic gold chain. It almost made me laugh because usually she hated things like that, but I suppose she used to wear it when she used to go dancing when she was young (my Nan and Granddad went dancing regularly for years and years until Granddad’s cancer got too bad and they couldn’t go). She always said how she’d like to go dancing again but didn’t want to dance with anyone else that wasn’t her husband.
I touched all the jewellery carefully. I remembered being a little girl and finding these treasures, sitting with my Nan on the same bed and badgering her about them. “Where did you get this one from Nan? Where’s this from? Which is your favourite? Is it this one? What about that one?” I thought they were all bloody fantastic at the time but somehow they look so different now that I’m older (plastic just doesn’t look so marvellously expensive or glamorous anymore).
I cried softly to myself. Last year when I was staying with her Nan said she’d give me these old photos and got me to memorise their stories. She was going to give them to me in this coming summer, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to inherit them now she wasn’t there to give them to me (other people would want them, even though she has many more). I asked dad and he seemed really doubtful, so we spent the last half hour before midnight looking through them and marvelling at how young everybody looks and how much somebody looks like so and so now.
I spent that night sleeping fitfully, waking up and looking around the room thinking how this is the last time I’d be here. It’s very strange and sad because a few days after my Nan died the builders came to install her new bathrooms. My Nan never liked her grotty green ones and always wished for lovely white new ones, and they really do look very good and sophisticated now. It’s such a shame she never got to see them… it really goes to show you shouldn’t wait and wait and wait when you want something, because you never know what’s just around the corner.
Loads of people came to the funeral; they’d all come down for her birthday party and many people wore their original party outfits as, even though she was gone, they still wanted to celebrate her life. It was a long day, and even though Nan was greatly missed it was good to see everyone again. (I was also touched by all the cards and messages everyone had sent, which makes me realise how I want to send cards more often myself. I haven’t talked to anyone since “the news” and I'll be gentle with reemerging but I’d like to be there for you all more.)
In her will she wished us all (her family) “uncomplicated and interesting lives” and that if she’s learnt just one thing it’s that we have to put our differences aside because we’re all the same really.
My cousin Ella (who is six) proposed to my brother Miles that day (who is seventeen) and says she will marry him when they are both older and he is shorter because that way she’ll be able to kiss him. Hehe. That was certianly interesting but probably not without it's complications. She’d also made me an Easter hat (which was basically a massive egg shape cut out of paper and coloured in with crayons with paper straps sellotaped to it to hold it in place) which she got me to wear on my head as I walked back down the road towards the house in my socks (I’d taken a break because I to rest and collect myself. I forgot my shoes so just walked around the corner and sat on the wall). Strangers gave me strange looks, which I hope would've made Joel proud.
When we got back home that night dad revealed he'd saved the old photographs for me, but that he might have to bring them back to Nan's house soon to decide with everyone else what to do with them. I was so pleased, and I had her weather book too (I couldn't help noticing she'd written down what the weather was like the day before she was found dead, which scared me a little). I got ready for bed and felt really bad again; empty and weird. I cried quite a lot and when I saw Linda (the therapist) yesterday she only had to ask, “How did the funeral go?” and the tears came.
The first day I got back to my dad's house since her death my dad handed me and Miles two cards. "These came in the post," he said, and everyone looked anxious. The envalopes had Nan's handwriting on them; she must have sent them the day before she died. God I felt so nervous and freaked out about that. I didn't want to open mine because it upset me too much, but I did and found she'd put some money inside for an "Easter egg" (she always used to put that in quotes for some reason). I've no idea what I'll spend it on now.
Thank you again for all your messages, I'll be around again soon but I really appreciate any support.
It suddenly dawned on me what we were actually driving to the closer and closer we got, the lump tightening in my throat the nearer and nearer we got to the house. Everything is so familiar to me there, and I felt like we’d been out all day and when we’d arrived Nan’d be waiting for us with hot drinks.
We walked up the path in the dark, and my aunt greeted us. We stood in the hallway, awkwardly at first, until we mulled around with cups of hot tea in our hands. Miles said how everything looks the same and yet so different, like you can’t really grasp what has happened.
I wandered upstairs, then downstairs again, then back up to the living room on the second floor. I felt like a ghost and floated over to the attic stairs that climb up to what used to be my Nan and Granddad’s bedroom and sat near the top of them, my chin held in my hands.
Cheryl (my aunt) said if there was anything we wanted from the house, as a keepsake, to just note it down on a list. I really didn’t want anything because it all belonged altogether in this house right here. Cheryl said she didn’t want me wishing I had taken something six months from now, so I took the list and looked at it and wandered about some more.
I felt really bad looking at things in the house after that for quite a little while; like I was just eying up things to take even though I wasn’t. I wondered what would happen to all the photographs (my Nan's dining room is a proud shrine of photographs of the family) and I sat on her bed. I noticed these boxes on her dresser and opened them, carefully. They were filled with jewellery and I carefully placed them out on the bed. I looked at them all; everything was plastic and pearls. She had this one quite wild necklace of big brightly coloured plastic gems all dangling in different shapes and sizes off of a plastic gold chain. It almost made me laugh because usually she hated things like that, but I suppose she used to wear it when she used to go dancing when she was young (my Nan and Granddad went dancing regularly for years and years until Granddad’s cancer got too bad and they couldn’t go). She always said how she’d like to go dancing again but didn’t want to dance with anyone else that wasn’t her husband.
I touched all the jewellery carefully. I remembered being a little girl and finding these treasures, sitting with my Nan on the same bed and badgering her about them. “Where did you get this one from Nan? Where’s this from? Which is your favourite? Is it this one? What about that one?” I thought they were all bloody fantastic at the time but somehow they look so different now that I’m older (plastic just doesn’t look so marvellously expensive or glamorous anymore).
I cried softly to myself. Last year when I was staying with her Nan said she’d give me these old photos and got me to memorise their stories. She was going to give them to me in this coming summer, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to inherit them now she wasn’t there to give them to me (other people would want them, even though she has many more). I asked dad and he seemed really doubtful, so we spent the last half hour before midnight looking through them and marvelling at how young everybody looks and how much somebody looks like so and so now.
I spent that night sleeping fitfully, waking up and looking around the room thinking how this is the last time I’d be here. It’s very strange and sad because a few days after my Nan died the builders came to install her new bathrooms. My Nan never liked her grotty green ones and always wished for lovely white new ones, and they really do look very good and sophisticated now. It’s such a shame she never got to see them… it really goes to show you shouldn’t wait and wait and wait when you want something, because you never know what’s just around the corner.
Loads of people came to the funeral; they’d all come down for her birthday party and many people wore their original party outfits as, even though she was gone, they still wanted to celebrate her life. It was a long day, and even though Nan was greatly missed it was good to see everyone again. (I was also touched by all the cards and messages everyone had sent, which makes me realise how I want to send cards more often myself. I haven’t talked to anyone since “the news” and I'll be gentle with reemerging but I’d like to be there for you all more.)
In her will she wished us all (her family) “uncomplicated and interesting lives” and that if she’s learnt just one thing it’s that we have to put our differences aside because we’re all the same really.
My cousin Ella (who is six) proposed to my brother Miles that day (who is seventeen) and says she will marry him when they are both older and he is shorter because that way she’ll be able to kiss him. Hehe. That was certianly interesting but probably not without it's complications. She’d also made me an Easter hat (which was basically a massive egg shape cut out of paper and coloured in with crayons with paper straps sellotaped to it to hold it in place) which she got me to wear on my head as I walked back down the road towards the house in my socks (I’d taken a break because I to rest and collect myself. I forgot my shoes so just walked around the corner and sat on the wall). Strangers gave me strange looks, which I hope would've made Joel proud.
When we got back home that night dad revealed he'd saved the old photographs for me, but that he might have to bring them back to Nan's house soon to decide with everyone else what to do with them. I was so pleased, and I had her weather book too (I couldn't help noticing she'd written down what the weather was like the day before she was found dead, which scared me a little). I got ready for bed and felt really bad again; empty and weird. I cried quite a lot and when I saw Linda (the therapist) yesterday she only had to ask, “How did the funeral go?” and the tears came.
The first day I got back to my dad's house since her death my dad handed me and Miles two cards. "These came in the post," he said, and everyone looked anxious. The envalopes had Nan's handwriting on them; she must have sent them the day before she died. God I felt so nervous and freaked out about that. I didn't want to open mine because it upset me too much, but I did and found she'd put some money inside for an "Easter egg" (she always used to put that in quotes for some reason). I've no idea what I'll spend it on now.
Thank you again for all your messages, I'll be around again soon but I really appreciate any support.