Some random thoughts about my Nana's death...

I remember when my grandmother died, I swear I felt my heart break and then sort of harden, somehow... sort of like I was trying to make sure it never happened again.

Thinking about it, that was probably the start of my goth journey... I'd never experienced anything like that before and I was forced to accept certain things (like death) as a normal part of life. Part of me had kind of refused to accept it before... losing loved ones was something that happened to other people, not to me, so it was a total shock when I lost someone that was such a huge part of my life. Even the death of my paternal grandfather didn't seem to bother me very much, as I didn't know him well so therefore couldn't really mourn him. I felt sad that my (other) Nan was now alone after so many decades of having him there (to moan at and nag, but it was just her way with him, doing that shows she cares deeply). But my (maternal) Nana had been living with us for 23 years... and through that time we had faced so many things together, like the death of my Uncle Jim (her youngest son) in a tragic road accident - his car slid on black ice sending his car crashing into a wall, killing him instantly of a broken neck... our money troubles... many and varying health crises, including my Dad needing to be sectioned into psychiatric hospitals wards, twice! Not to mention all of the fun and happy times, like family holidays, day trips, laughing and joking and even silly little things like watching tv or chatting about books... it all adds up, and when it is suddenly not there anymore, it is life changing, and not in a good way.


It is four years since Nana passed on, December 26th 2006, and even now I get upset by the smallest little things. I bought some carnations the other day, and as I bent my head to smell them I was instantly reminded of her, and I had a hard time not bursting into floods of tears in the middle of the crowded supermarket! Nana adored flowers, and gardening, and she always had fresh flowers. Carnations were her favourite, especially pink ones, or the ones with the picotee edges (where the edges are a different colour to the rest of the flower) and chrysanthemums.


It is just seemingly silly little things like that, that still set me off... sometimes I will just sit and cry, even after all these years, because I cannot believe she has gone.

My one regret is that all of her dressmaking knowledge died with her... when I think of what I could have done with just a fraction of the skills she had, I could kick myself