I’m thinking About my Grandma

“It’s happened” popped up on the screen of my iphone.

There was no need for further explanation, with those 2 words I had been made aware that my grandmother was dead.

At the age of 90 she drifted off into the world beyond or the deep void of nothingness that awaits us all depending on what you believe.

Either way the woman who was once called Silvia Fisher is no more.

All that she was she has taken to her grave with her. Her quiet dignity, her ability to inspire love and respect from people with a mere look, her instinctive knack for diplomacy and her enduring need to set an example to those around her in how to behave.

She leaves behind a family who, without exception loved and adored her.

She has been on a steady decline for a year, perhaps more, the end, when it came was expected. Her kidneys had failed and the milligrams of morphine that drip, drip, dripped into her bloodstream were all that kept the pain bearable towards the end.

I tell you this because it astonishes me that in spite of the fact that I have had all of this information to hand for several weeks I still feel cheated by her loss. I still feel like the 32 years that I spent with her weren’t long enough and wish for more. To live to 90 years old is a great achievement in its own right and yet still it simply was not long enough.

As I write this my parents are burying my grandma in London, I sit here in a distant land paying the price for my choice to move away from all that I knew and was dear to me.

I knew that this is how it was going to be but knowing something and experiencing it are two different things. I was not prepared for this and I am not sure that one can prepare for such a thing.

I do know this much, I am not sad for Grandma because she is dead, I am sad for myself for the fact that I will never see her again. I am sad for the fact that I will never hear her voice and will never marvel at her ability to smile in the face of hardship.

My grandma lived the high life but she never allowed her situation to influence the way she thought of others. Her friends came from all backgrounds and cultures, she was a Lady who carried herself with dignity and grace wherever she went, she carried herself in the same way on her final trip. She told her family that her mother and long departed sister were in her hospital room ready to escort her to what lies beyond.

She kept them waiting for a while but it would have been rude to make them wait for too long.

Goodbye Silvia my grandma, you leave behind 13 people who wouldn’t exist had you never been here and many, many more whose lives are that much better for the fact that you were. I’ll miss you till I am with you.

Marc