My grandmother died last night.
She was old, crippled with Alzheimers and dementia. People always say in these situations that it's a release for the person and their families.
Whatever.
She was my grandmother, my Nana, my father's mother. Now we have to bring her back to Ireland, attend a catholic mass where some priest will waffle on about what a great woman she was, how she always lived life to the fullest and how she touched the lives of everyone here.
This priest never met my Nana. What the fuck does he know? How dare he stand up there at his altar justifying her life to everyone present?
If I had my way, I would forgo the whole church bit and just have a private service where people could say whatever they wanted and remember Nana in their own way. But she was a religious woman and her last words were words of prayer to God, old Irish prayers that I hadn't heard in years.
I am sad. I loved her very, very much. I cried once, last night when my father called to give me the news. It was the first time I had ever heard my father cry, the first time I've ever seen him totally overcome with emotion. This is what made me upset. Not the news of the death, but the way it was making my father feel.
"She's gone Paul, she's gone. Ten minutes ago."
That's all he could get out. I never wanted anything more in the world than to be beside him at that very moment and give him the biggest hug I could muster but I was 50 miles away in London. I told him I loved him and we said goodbye then I had a cry for him.
Whatever else is unsure in this stinking dunghill of a world a mother's love is not. - James Joyce.
Goodbye Nana.