Dear Gran,
I’m writing to you after visiting Yeadon today. I brought Athar to walk around the tarn. It was frozen and snowy and it seemed so much smaller than I remember — no Concord to spot this time. We took a little trip down Yeadon high street, and then we walked back to your house along Rufford. Even though someone else lives there now, it’s still feels like your house.
This letter is so hard because you are gone.
I wanted to write to say sorry that I never got a chance to say goodbye to you. It was very hard to have a relationship with you in those final years, as you were under the care of my parents. But I never stopped thinking about you or loving you from a distance. Even though you are not here now, I still love you very much. I always will.
You brought me up in your little house in Cricketers Green, and you made me feel so safe and cared for. There was so much pain and turbulence at home, and you gave me a sanctuary from all of it. Every weekend, we sat in your kitchen and played rummy, and spotted the Heron on the millpond. We made cakes and scones and watched the cricket in summer. There was so much calm.
I can’t thank you enough for being that person for me. If it weren’t for your strength and consistency in showing me love, I would not know how to give that to others now. It was the most special gift. And because of that gift, I’m not alone, and I’m happy, and I’m surrounded by friends and family. I know that’s what you always really wanted for me.
The last time we saw each other, you were so unhappy, having been taken from your home and put into care in Otley. Our meeting had to be a secret, arranged at a time where others could not visit. It was risky but it was worth every moment. I wanted you to see me happy, so you wouldn’t worry.
You met Athar, and we talked about how much you didn’t want to leave your house. I helped you to change your pad and knickers after an accident, just like you did for me so many times when I was little. I made you tea this time.
I’m so sorry it wasn’t within my power to change things. I visited Cricketer’s Green today for the first time in around ten years, and I can feel that loss so strong. I wish more than anything that I could have made all that shock of being dragged from your home peaceful for you, as you made the chaos at the start of my life peaceful for me.
I can only hope you weren’t aware enough to feel the alienation that was enforced on you at the end. You didn’t deserve to be alone, and I hope you know that we did want it to be different and that we cared. In the end, it was hard to find out where you were after they moved you. They instructed people not to tell us anything. The situation is, sadly, as complicated as it is heartbreaking.
But one thing remains. Nobody can take the good memories away, and there are so many. The time I flung myself into the tarn after feeding the ducks, religiously watching ‘Friends’ together on a Friday evening when it first aired, flying with you to Australia for the first time, and listening to your many remarkable stories from the war. These are just a few that pop into my head.
You lived a long life — 99 years. You saw so much of this world. Born in 1920, you raised your whole family of siblings after your mum died in child birth, giving up the chance to go to school so your brothers could go instead. You lived through the second world war, and lost your closest brother, Alf, to the battle. I don’t think you ever got over that. You lived through Beatlemania and the swinging sixties, and you saw the first man on the moon.
You became a dinner lady and cooked whilst your husband baked bread for a living. Then you lost him, tragically, to cancer, before his time should have been up. Nobody knew smoking was bad for you back then. He died on holiday and you buried him there, in Majorca.
You and my grandad were dedicated campaigners, who knocked on doors to get my grandad elected as a councillor, and were staunch defenders of the working classes. You saw Labour triumph in a landslide victory in the 90’s which you were excited about because it meant I would go to university. I would be the first in our side of the family to do it.
People said that bringing me up filled the hole that my grandad left when he died, they said we had a special bond, like they hadn’t seen before. They were right. You always stood firmly in my corner, even in the most difficult of times and you understood how painful things were. You didn’t tell me I was wrong to be upset by what was happening, and you didn’t make excuses. And you tried to do something about it, when nobody else did. You knew how to be big for others.
You have left me behind now, in the physical world at least, but not without an amazing legacy. All I can do is use that legacy, and make sure the closest people in my life know and feel the love, support and strength that you gifted me. In doing that, I know you’ll always be alive everyday: with me, with us.
Love you, Gran.
