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2005-12-21 @ 11:04 p.m. |
Thick Glass |
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fr. F. dormir to Websters Dictionary 1913
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It�s just over 36 hours since it happened and I still feel nothing. It�s a bit like looking at the world through a sheet of thick glass. Life is going on around me and I�m going through all the pre Christmas motions but nothing seems to matter. She died at ten past nine in the morning. Her carer had become worried only ten minutes before and called an ambulance, the doctor, my aunt and my father. My aunt only lives around the corner and managed to get there in time. No one else did. I am still in a state of frozen disbelief. The sensible logical part of my brain, the part that knew she was dying knows. The other part cannot accept that I won�t see her again and is still expecting she will turn up on Boxing Day for the traditional cold meat with bubble and squeak. Maybe that will be when it finally hits me or maybe not it was the day after the funeral that I finally accepted my Grampy was gone. People have been so very kind, I am almost overwhelmed by the sympathy and support I�ve received. It is so nice to know that people care. I have had emails, phone calls and text messages from people who may not have known what to say. (I didn�t know how to reply either) but they said something which is so much better than saying nothing. It was so unexpected which is stupid really I knew every day was a bonus but I�d thought we�d at least have one last Christmas but it wasn�t to be. I always thought when it happened there�s be a phone call in the middle of the night or early in the morning but my father came over to break the news early in the afternoon after a morning which I had spent obliviously sleeping off my virus. Now there is just nothingness. My sister was able to cry yesterday and sobbed on my shoulder and she cried again this evening. The rest of us were simply shocked into a frozen silence, aside from when we were making jokes about the situation and horrifying my brother�s girlfriend but humour has always been the way we have coped with the most difficult things in life. Jane thinks I am preserving the English stiff upper lip and she is probably right. My family does not show emotion or cry in public. We carry on and keep busy because that way there is no need to think. The most inane things keep running through my mind. What will I do with her Christmas present? Who else in the world will want diabetic chocolate mints or lavender talc? I wonder if it would be wrong to return them to the shops? I didn�t post her special Christmas card because I was planning to give it to her myself. If I�d only posted it she�d have had it only for a few days. One of the first things we did was take all her presents out from under the tree the last thing we want is to come across one unexpectedly. Sunday will be difficult enough without adding to it. Mum has suggested we simply remove the labels and give her Christmas presents to the home where she had respite care as there may well be elderly ladies there who do not get many Christmas presents. I wish too I�d been a better granddaughter, a more tolerant patient person. I could and should have visited her more often than I did even though I was busy. There will be no more opportunities to visit or letters and cards with love from Granny and that hurts. I cannot wish her back she has been ill for far too long and the pain has been so severe I can only be glad that it�s over at last. She doesn�t hurt anymore. She also has the strongest faith of anyone I know and was certain that she was going to a better place where my Grampy would be waiting for her. She�s spent the last 7 years waiting to go and join him so I cannot be sad for her but I am so very sad for me. I cannot imagine how much more hideous it must be for my cousins who in the space of a year have lost three grandparents and now have none left. Even though I spent part of this evening stuffing death announcements into envelopes to catch the last post before Christmas, I can�t believe she�s gone. It is incomprehensible that I am not going to let myself into her house shout hello granny it�s me and get a response, maybe when I don�t it will finally hit home.
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