I hope you don’t mind if I get a bit personal for a mo.
My beloved Grandma recently passed away. I’ve written about her in jest before, and while it was a good-natured ribbing I don’t think she ever got to see it. She definitely won’t see this one. I just felt like I should write about her again, as sort of a goodbye.
Being serious on Funny Women seems a little counter-productive, so I should explain. When she was younger and in better health, my Grandma was a truly funny lady. Her sense of humour didn’t completely match mine, which I think made some situations even more hilarious.
It’s true that she was very unwell in her final weeks, but somewhere underneath the illness she was definitely still there. When I sat next to her hospital bed, her eyes lit up. When I left, she brightened just long enough to genuinely return my “I love you.”
The memories I have of Grandma aren’t that numerous. She lived in London when I was a child, and by the time I’d moved to the city she was ensconced in a retirement home oop north. So I don’t feel like I saw her that often. When I did, though, they were really good times.
I remember sitting at her dining table, eating breakfast and having my hair curled like a princess before my brother’s wedding. I remember casually playing with her collection of glass ornaments… out on the balcony of her flat, at least 10 floors up. Then there’s the fact that she’s never been anything less than impeccably dressed for all occasions. That’s always made me giggle. We might only have been going from the lounge to the kitchen, but she’d be done up to the nines.
Somewhere, there’s a diary from when I was about six or seven. Most entries are in my large, loopy scrawl, but one is in Grandma’s unmistakeable posh cursive. She writes that I slept over at her flat. And that I kicked her in the stomach in my sleep! I didn’t remember doing it then and I don’t now, but she recorded it in such a matter-of-fact, ‘oh well’ sort of way that it’s stuck with me.
Grandma, if you’re reading this, I love you. And if you want to get me back for the tummy-kicking incident, please don’t do it in public.
