Two extracts taken from my Facebook Page on coping with the first year.
💕💕 A year. 365 days ago I phoned my Aunty to tell her I was having some flowers delivered for Mamma for Christmas and to make sure the careers signed for them. Then she said something that quite literally changed my world.
“The paramedics are here Siân, she’s not well.” I don’t know why, but I knew.
2 hours it took me. 2 hours to run out of work and drive to her.
When I got there she said she was fine, asked why I was there if I had a party to be at and not to leave it late driving back.
Instinct? That horrible feeling? A hunch? I’ll never know why I knew, but I knew. She wasn’t well and this time I knew it was different from the other phone calls I had received that she was poorly.
I just don’t think I was as prepared for the week that followed like I expected.
No one prepares you for the waiting. The waiting, because in reality you never know how long someone’s got left.
No one prepares you for the clock watching. The seconds slipping into minutes and minutes slipping into hours and hours into days.
No one prepares you for the hope doctors give. The “let’s try antibiotics, they’ve worked before”.
The hope that the doctors are trying but that look they give you before they slip quietly out the door.
The look that has the words ‘we’re doing this for you, not for her’ written all over their face.
The trying anything, willing her to eat - because then you know you tried your god damn hardest.
No one prepares you for the various nurses, careers and family that slip in and out the room. All with the same look on their faces. The nurses, they know. They give you that look of pity and sadness each time they walk into the room to do their checks. In fact no one really speaks; just walks in, does their thing and leaves.
No one prepares you for the smell. The smell that can only be described as death, that’s etched into my memory. The smell of hand sanitizer, drugs, body odour and everything clinical. It burns like fire through your nose, knocking the breath out of you. It follows you when you leave, refusing to let you forget what’s going on even when you’re far away.
No one prepares you for what to say; for asking if they’re okay because what else do you ask? Do you ask if they’re aware? Do you ask if they’re happy with how her life panned out? Do you ask if they’ve seen someone that’s ready to come and fetch her? Do you ask if they’re scared? No one prepares you for not knowing what to ask, so you settle on if they’re okay.
No one prepares you for how close you sit. Close enough to watch every breath they take, counting every in and out. No one prepares you for the sinking of your heart every time they’re a little slow to take a breath.
No one prepares you for the thoughts. The regrets. The missed opportunities at telling them you loved them. The thoughts of what you’ll do without them and how you’ll cope. Because life has always been certain and suddenly it’s unknown.
No one prepares you for the lack of tears that flow until you’re alone, and then how they don’t stop until the hours when the world is silent.
No one prepares you for the pain. The pain that no physical pain could even come close to. The ache, the anger, and the need to scream and shout but no ones listening.
No one prepares you for the outside world.
No one prepares you for how angry you are that everyone around you is carrying on as normal and that the world hasn’t stopped.
Or the anger that time hasn’t Stopped still.
Or the anger that time hasn’t Stopped still.
No one prepares you for the burning feeling that rips through your body as you hear a stranger laughing and enjoying their day.
But most of all - no one prepares you for that day. That phone call, that deafening silence, the emptiness, and the fact that life carries on when you’re about to say goodbye to someone you don’t know what it’s like to live without. 💕
💕
I’ve tried several times to try and find the words for today. To describe exactly how I feel, or to make people understand that she wasn’t just a grandma.
I remember living with my phone on loud last year for a week. It charged when I was awake and it was placed by my head when I was asleep so I would hear it just in case. All week when I expected it to ring it never rang.
Mum and I went to an emergency hospital appointment for me and as we were driving I felt something touch my hair, just as Mum looked at me. “What” I asked? “Nothing... just thought I saw something” she replied. A sign? A signal of something to come?
Then I was struck down by norovirus a mere couple of hours later and after finally climbing into bed again after being sick, it rang. It was a deafening ring because why else do you get a call about 5am in the morning other than for something bad.
I didn’t need my Aunty to say anything but the words she did say haunt me. She said I needed to get to Mamma, it was time.
Nottingham was a 2 hour drive away. I woke Mum up, I didn’t get dressed because I was too poorly and we stepped outside to realise the roads were frozen over.
Mum was hesitant to drive but I told her I HAD to get there. We drove and before getting far we saw a car in a slight ditch and we stopped. I stepped out, went to see if the driver was okay and offered to help the young girl. She was okay and we drove on.
The entire way there we didn’t say much. The silence was deafening. I almost wanted noise but at the same time I wanted to scream at any noise to stop.
The roads were full of ice, we couldn’t drive any quicker than 30 MPH and I kept saying to Mum I had to make it, I had to.
Finally we got to Newark and the roads were okay to go a bit faster. But then a second call came. I can tell you exactly where we were, I can name the exact road. I can tell you the words, the reaction, my pain....
She was gone. Shortly before 8:30 she was gone. How? Why? Why us? Why her?
Had we not stopped for that girl we would’ve made it. Had I not been sick we would’ve made it. So many ifs.
So many questions, so much pain, so much hurt, so much left unsaid.... so much new uncertainty.
My grandma. My rock, my hero, the one who understood, the one that listened, the one that cared, the one that held me when I was poorly, wiped my tears several times over. Gone. Just like that. And I’d missed getting there by half an hour. A mere half an hour.
And that’s how my life turned upside down. No one prepares you for that phone call. They can’t. They can’t prepare for the words, the feelings, the reaction. Any of it. No one prepares you for the year that follows, the each “first” that happens that year. No one tells you how it’s going to feel.
She wasn’t just a grandma to me. She was one of my best friends and she’ll always be my grandma. She wasn’t a grandma.
She IS my grandma 
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