Hello there Blogspot! It has been a while, hasn't it?!
All of my posts are pre-uni and so I thought to myself: let's update stuff, shall we? And so here I am! After reading my older posts, I'm not entirely sure what's happened to my thought processes...I used bit words etc. in the other posts but god there's some bad grammar there! I'm going to attempt to keep my grammar intact now, which to be honest, should be a requirement for someone at my level of ENGLISH studies!
It's a shame that some of the posts mention an ex friend that seeked attention and drove me mad became slightly nullified as I started talking to her again a while ago. Granted, I don't talk to her at all now but still, it proves yet again how weak I can be! It's a shame that I revert to that sometimes but I am working on it! My weakness is something that, in the right state of mind, I can overcome. Although this depends on the situation: loss is one that I cannot simply talk myself into dealing with, which I truly discovered/re-discovered in January with the loss of my Mum's Mum. University has been a massive change but not an unwelcome now and changes in relationships have also made a big difference to me, but they're things that are essentially manageable. Losing someone just outside immediate family is big. Especially when you're present. I don't want to get all morbid for my first post back but it is rare that I speak about this. My Grandma was a lovely woman and a massive inspiration. She fought the C word for two long years and it eventually beat her. I saw her just two days before she quietly slipped away and it's an unfortunate memory that will stay with me for a long time. She was struggling so much. This strong, wise and lively woman was reduced to a frail old lady in the short time I spent with my Mum at her bedside. The last thing I spoke to her about was a performance that I was just about to start working for and she made a joke about it. She then started struggling, had to be checked on by the doctors and so I left the room holding back tears. She was asleep by the time I saw her again and so myself and my Mum left the hospital. It affected me a lot. I was almost shaking and in tears immediately after and the image of her on the bed, gasping for air when she'd removed her mask stuck in my mind. This was Wednesday the 23rd of January. On the Friday my Mum went to visit her and see her cousin, one of Grandma's remaining blood relatives (other than her children and grandchildren) as she had just got in from Chicago. I had a little lie in but got woken up from my phone going off. It was my Dad and he told me to get ready quickly because he was going to pick me up; the doctor had said she was on her way out. I rushed to get ready, keeping the emotions out as long as I could if only to keep my breakfast down. I needed to stay strong for Mum. I kept telling myself that as I waited for Dad and again all the way to Trafford General Hospital. We got there to be greeted by my Mum, in tears, her Dad and her cousin. We were shortly joined by my Mum's sister, her husband and one of their daughters. We sat waiting after saying hello to a barely-conscious Grandma. At about 11:10 we were called into the room where she was as she was nearly gone. We surrounded her bed and everyone said goodbye to her through tears, except for my Dad who had gone for coffee just minutes before with Mum's cousin. Her breathing slowed and a nurse came over to check her vital signs. She had gone. The nurse told us and my Mum who had been holding Grandma's hand and knelt down beside her next to her sister, collapsed against the bed. I hugged her as she wept. We all hugged each other out of the love and support we all needed so much at that time and were shortly joined by Dad and Mum's cousin again. That was, I think, the only time I saw my Grandad cry. He had been through everything with Grandma and been such a massive support to here, despite contracting skin cancer just after Grandma was first diagnosed. He is a truly amazing man and the few tears I saw him shed had more impact than any of those shed by the rest of us. The long-lasting love between the two of them is something that most people nowadays can only dream of. They were married for nearly 54 years, their 50th anniversary being one of the happiest times of mine and my family's life. The respect and love I have for that lovely old man could not be greater. He fought a battle with cancer and supported his very ill wife through hers until the end. And he's still as charming and funny as he was before she passed away. A truly inspirational man. I can't talk about someone being inspirational without mentioning my Mum. She is brilliant. She supported both of my grandparents, and still runs around after Grandad now. I wasn't the greatest help I could have been for the two years but at the end, when I had a few months of adult life under my belt, I knew how important this all was and forced myself to be the strongest I have ever been, for her sake as well as my Grandparents. I had been a pain for years with my Mum, we had countless problems and barely spoke for months despite living in the same house. It was mostly my fault and I don't think I will ever completely forgive that. So when this very difficult time came, I booked my ideas up and i was there for my Mum. Since then we have been closer and I think it has fixed a lot of the cracks in our relationship. It's awful that it had to come down to losing someone so important for us to resolve our differences but I like to think of it as Grandma's last gift to us. It's just another way in which I can be positive that her suffering is over and we don't have to worry about her anymore. As I have mentioned on previous posts, I am a Catholic, and the belief that she has gone to heaven and is with her daughter who died almost twelve years ago is a great comfort. As sad as we all are that she had to leave us, we believe that she is being looked after and no longer in the pain that took over the last two years of her life. The only thing about her death that could have been better for her is if her son, my uncle, had made it to the Hospital in time. When she went he was on the plane from Australia and therefore we couldn't reach him until her landed hours later. As she slipped away it began to snow, very lightly. This, however silly it may sound, seemed like it was a sign of her leaving us, and if it was, was a beautiful way in which to do so. If it wasn't then it was a pretty big coincidence.
Writing this has made me a breakdown slightly, so I do apologise if any of this makes no sense and if it is too morbid. I needed to do this, I think. I'm barely past the initial grieving period and it's been over four months since she left us. I have also been emotional recently for other reasons and getting it all out is therapeutic if a little messy (I have used A LOT of tissues).
Loss has always, since the death of my Auntie, terrified me. I will always remember my Mum coming home after saying my Auntie was poorly, in tears. She sat me down in our front room in our old house, and told me that she had died. I cried almost endlessly that day and even worried my parents that something more was up at one point. I had never experienced loss before and this one had made my closest cousin in relationship and age lose his mother and since then we have barely spoken and we see him a couple of times a year a the most. I still have the teddy that belonged to my auntie, it's with me here at uni, and I do sometimes hug it and think of her and how things would be if she hadn't had a brain tumor that made her collapse and led my cousin (who was also seven at the time) to calling the emergency services for his own mother. It was an exceptionally sad time, although my memories are slightly clouded by my young age. My Mum lost her closest sibling and her best friend and my Grandparents lost their little girl. Not to mention my cousin losing his Mum. The thought of losing my Mum, even through the hard times between us, is the scariest thing I can think of.
And yet after that trauma and the recent loss of her Mum, my Mum still manages to go strong and stay happy a lot of the time. She celebrated her 40th birthday a couple of weeks ago and I have never felt more proud to call her my Mum. She had a lovely time with most of her friends and family and even her brother, her sister-in-law and two of her nephews made it over from Australia to be there. Mum's cousin, who I mentioned before, also made it back over which meant the world to Mum. The sheer number of people there to support my Mum was amazing. She did a short speech in which she spoke mostly to her Dad and mine. I nearly teared up then from the pride, hints of sadness about Grandma and happiness that I have such an amazing family and Mum has such supportive friends. It was a brilliant night and I got to babysit with my Dad's, cousin's daughter, looking after her half baby sister who is a very cute baby.
I don't think I've ever really said all of this, not all together at least. This hasn't been the easiest thing to write but I really did need it.
Apologies for the sadness! I will hold it back from now on, that or keep it for my diary!
On a more positive note: I'm going to see Ironman3 next week and Sherlock series three is out this year.
Over and out.
