Blog: Quiet This Week

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Hello all - you might have noticed it's been a bit quiet on the webpage this week. The reason for this is that there's been some family things going on - my Nan became ill a while ago and went into hospital for a major operation, from which she never fully recovered, and she died on Wednesday morning.

Nan was a brilliant woman, who I've taken great delight in showing off about for many years - right through into her late eighties she was a fantastic forceful personality, very modern and unorthodox in her thinking (you didn't want to get her going on religion...), NEVER afraid to share her views with anybody, always up to date with what was going on in the world, and a constant challenge to anybody's idea of what an "old lady" should be like. The last time I had a conversation with her she was railing against the Royal Family, and pointing out how stupid it was Charles and Camilla getting married when they'd seemed perfectly happy just living together.

Luckily for me and The Love Of My Life we got to see her on Tuesday night - she was heavily sedated, but a nurse told us that she could hear what we were saying, so we sat a while and talked to her, about all the times she and my Grandad had looked after me and my brother when we were little. Talking like this, it struck just how much they DID look after us - my parents split up when I was about seven, and I'd never realised until the other night just how many times we went to stay with them after that, and how much they did for us. I felt blessed, to be honest, to be able to say thank you for her for all of that.

It was thus a relief, in a funny way, next morning to find out she passed away. As I say, my Nan never held back on telling us what she thought about things, especially about how she wanted to finish off her days. She hated the idea of being incapicated, relying on other people and losing her independence, and she also had a fear of dying on her own and not being found, so we were in no doubt that she would have preferred to go when she did. Last night my brother and I and our lovely girlfriends sat in the pub and talked about all this, and, again in a strange way, it felt uplifting, life AFFIRMING really, to know we'd had so much love in our lives, and still had it between us.

I suppose it'd be better if we could tell each other things like that when we're in a position to enjoy it, and I do try and say it when I can, but I'm glad I finally got the chance to tell her. I love my Nan, she was bloody FANTASTIC.

posted 22/4/2005 by MJ Hibbett

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