Last saturday, my Granny, Thirza Mary English, moved into her final sleep after three years of living in a lost, confusing half-world of dementia. She started to become lost when I came back from USA in 2005, and since then, she has moved more and more into her own dreamscape. We should then perhaps remember her as she was, when her personality, and soul were intact, and the disease did not disintegrate and unravel her. And the normal aging process made her look different and lost.
She was a wonderful granny. And remembering her makes me know how lucky I am to have had a happy childhood, when so many do not.
I remember. Her telling me not to grow up too quickly when I told her I wanted breasts (!); her teaching Nicola and I how to knit (but our scarves tripled in width and were all wonky) and make rag dollies. We spent hours pottering around her garden in the summer, we loved the flowers (the fuschias were fairies) and we made perfume out of rose petals, which turned a beautiful shade of yellow-brown each time we did it (to our surprise). We made a den out of her clothes rail and old wooden chairs, and lurked for hours underneath blankets which smelled of their house. We made coconut ice and honeycomb crisp in the kitchen, and went on day trips to dunstable downs and Cassiobury park. We used to go round for sunday tea, and had bread and butter and home made ice cream (which I never did like, but Nicola loved). We loved going to their house, and used to take it in turns to stay over night on a saturday.
She was Mary, and she has been and will be missed. I wish she could have known her great grandchildren.
Sunday 4 October 2009
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