Grandma

A grandmother is a special woman, full of warmth, kindness, love and laughter

She overlooks our faults, encourages our dreams and praises our every success

A grandmother has the wisdom of a teacher, the sincerity of a true friend and the tenderness of a mother.

Grandma, you are someone we admire, respect and love very much and you are always in our hearts.

My Grandma passed away on 1st April 2011, she was 95. This past year has been really hard for me. I didn't think it would be but it has. My Grandma was such a huge part of my life and that chunk seems to have gone and I'm left with a void which I'm not sure how or if I should fill it.

Below is an extract from what I wrote and then read at Grandma's funeral.

"My Grandma was born in Dublin in 1915. When she was 9 she met my grandfather  and they became lifelong companions.

They married in 1936 and in 1937 they moved to England, settling in Birmingham.

In 1939 they started their family, having 2 sons and a daughter(my mum).Religion was always an important part of their lives but it must have been truly tested when they lost their first son when he was only 5 years old.

In 1963 she became a grandmother for the first time. She had 4 grandchildren and gained another 3 by marriage.

I arrived in 1974 and from the age of 6 weeks old Mum entrusted me into Grandma’s care every day whilst she and my Dad worked. Grandma did the same when mum went back to work after having my brother.  It was here that our strong bond with Grandma was formed. We learnt many things in those early days – doing up buttons, tying shoelaces and telling the time, to name a few. I remember having wonderful conversations with Grandma about my imaginary family – we would stand by the kitchen sink and talk about my fictional husband and 4 children for what seemed like hours!

We are all so lucky that we had her in our lives for such a long time,she shared our good and bad times, she enjoyed a party as well – she was alwaysa good party guest – a big smile on her face and enchanting our friends with her wonderful character and wicked sense of humour. We’ve inherited many fabulous party games from her too such as the magic writing.

In 1983 Grandma and Grandad moved to Cornwall where they lived for 17 years.

This was the beginning of many happy holidays with them, even our friends would sometimes come and stay with them too. We kept in touch mainly by telephone and it was during this time that my brother and I perfected our roles as ‘wind up merchants’.

Every now and again we would phone up and pretend to be someone different – a man wanting to come and buy Grandmas settee, a lady from BT doing a voice test which involved Grandma having to count to 5 from various points in her lounge. Being asked to see if she could see any cows in her garden as they had escaped from a local farm or speaking to a lady from Clarkes shoe shop who was doing a survey about footwear which involved Grandma counting how many pairs of shoes she had!

I know it sounds very cruel but I do know that Grandma loved these phonecalls and at the end of each phone call, when she found out it was us she would always laugh loudly and then threaten us with a 'laroping' which of course never materialised.

Grandma moved back to Birminghamin 2000 after my Grandad had passed away and she came to live with my parents.

Before mum retired Grandma always prepared the veg for dinner and did the ironing – she loved to be useful.

The partying didn’t stop either – she attended many of my brothers music gigs and most recently attended one of my fancy dress parties dressed as a pirate. She was also a bit of a jetsetter. She often flew out to Spain and Sweden to spend time with my uncle and his family. She also went away with Mum and Dad in their camper van, even venturing to Ireland with us 3 years ago.

She knitted squares to be made into blankets for charity. Her face was a picture on her 90^th birthday. Mum had suggested everyone bring her a ball of wool as a gift so she was sat on the settee surrounded by hundreds of balls of wool.

Grandma, you knew how to laugh and joke, you had  a warm smile and a lovely singing voice,  you loved watching the wrestling on a Saturday afternoon, - you once took my brother and I toa  live wrestling event at a local leisure centre and insisted we wait until the end so we could meet Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks.

You hated pickled onions but loved a drink of sherry, you have left us with many words and phrases which we’ll use forever – in an Irish accent of course.Your love for all of us was unremitting and unconditional.  We miss you but we all have wonderful happy memories which will stay with us forever."