He was my everything. He always remembered me wherever he went, and either brought me along with him or brought me back something if I couldn’t go. Most times, however, I did. He was (apart from my parents), my favourite person on this earth, someone I felt I could tell secrets to and know they wouldn’t be shared, someone that I knew always believed in me, with everything I did. He was my Grandad, and in February of 2013 he passed away, leaving an unfillable hole. Truthfully, it affected me more than I think anyone knew. I kept it to myself and wrote letters to him in my room, thinking that by some miracle he would see them.
I was with him hours before he died, holding his hand as the nurse took his blood – but I know now that him asking to hold my hand wasn’t for his sake, it was for mine. I sat there stroking his hand as I wondered when he would be coming home, when we would be able to watch football together again and scream at the TV when the players attempted a shot at the goal from the other side of the pitch. He didn’t though, and to this day it’s something that I can’t get over.
See, I had never experienced the loss of someone that I loved so much, someone I was so close to, so it was a big shock. At 13 years old I truly felt heartbreak for the first time.
I’m often apprehensive to mention that I was 13 when he passed away, because my grandad is in my thoughts every minute of every day and I tell everyone I meet about him because he deserves to live on. But telling them I was 13 makes me think that they wouldn’t believe how close I was to him. But see, it’s not about age, or about how long you got with someone. It’s about the impact they had on you. It wasn’t a secret to my family that he had a big impact on me, and I on him. Those 13 precious years that I had with him formed a bond that was so unbreakable that even death couldn’t break it. My mum found a picture the other day of him standing in the field behind his house, and little me running to him – in that picture you can see how fast I’m running to him, with my only intent being to make it into his arms. But that was nothing new. I always ran to him, and he would always catch me and hold on to me.
I still see him and hear his voice in my head, and I know he’s there. A couple of nights after he passed away, we were staying in his house and I was in a room with my cousin, who was also thankfully my best friend. For whatever reason, I opened the bedroom door and saw him walking into the kitchen. I called my cousin over, she looked, and she saw him too. We had never spoken about that, until two years ago. She brought it up, and without even asking each other we recounted what he had been wearing, the exact movements he made and where he was going.
He lived 10 minutes away from us and would come down to see us every day. Because his house was so close, I often went up with my mum to lock up, as the entire family tried desperately to hold onto it. In the last few years though I stopped, and now it’s something I will never understand.
A couple of months ago the house was sold. I’m told its to a young couple and I wish them all the best and I hope they make memories as good as the ones we made in that house. Even though I know how excited they must be, I’m angry. I’m angry, not at them, but because it was his house. I would do anything to be able to walk in and see him sitting in his chair with his cup of tea or an occasional shot of whiskey beside him. I’m angry because since the house has sold, I have been put right back to square one in the grieving process – which is no one’s fault, because I know it had to be done. But I didn’t expect to be catapulted back, feeling like he had just passed away yesterday all over again.
When we were dividing his stuff, I took his ties and a photograph that he kept beside his bed of me, my cousin and him. (I also took some bookends, but that was more for me than it was sentimental). After the sale of the house, I started carrying his tie in my bag everywhere I went. I now hold on to it whenever I’m nervous, or whenever I miss him (which quite literally is all the time). I was so desperate to get a piece of him back that I searched for his old aftershave, and when I found it, I bought a bottle and sprayed it on all of his ties and around my room. When I opened the box and smelled it, it was like he had come back. My mum even thanked me for bringing the scent back into our lives.
I want to talk more about the resurgence of grief. It’s not that I hadn’t grieved for him in the years in between – he was missed by me every single day and I would constantly talk to him. Every robin that I saw, I knew it was him coming to tell me he was still with me. On proud moments I would look to the sky and pray that he was proud of me. But I wasn’t constantly heartbroken in the past couple of years. I knew the house was for sale but thought that somehow, I wouldn’t have to face it for a long time to come. I was away at a dentist appointment when my mum called to tell me the keys were being handed over and we would never be in there again. I felt so awful that I had let these years slip by when I could have gone in whenever I had wanted – now that’s gone. I didn’t end up seeing the house again, which in hindsight is probably a good thing – it would have been completely different, there was no furniture in it, and it just wouldn’t have been grandad’s house. I spent that entire night crying in my boyfriend’s arms, feeling the same heartbreak that I had felt when he has passed away.
Now, a couple of months on, it’s the same. My grandad’s tie is sitting beside me as I type this, and like some sort of weirdo, I take a sniff of it every few minutes. The slightest mention of him breaks my heart and reduces me to a puddle of tears. I miss him more than anything, and I could never find the words to explain how much I miss him.
If this is the heartbreak that comes with love, is it worth it? I could be a hard person, someone who was forever changed by the immense amount of grief at such a young age and vowed to never love again, but then what’s the point? You lose so much time, so many amazing memories that could have been made. I never would have met my boyfriend, who has helped me through it so much when I felt like I couldn’t go to my mum for fear of upsetting her because after all, it was her father. But weirdly, one quote I find myself going back to is one said by the Queen after the 9/11 tragedy – grief is the price we pay for love. And I don’t care if I’m grieving for him all over again, because I loved him and I know he loved me. I had those amazing 13 years with him filled with so many amazing memories that will never fade. I know he’s looking down on me and that he’s with me all the time, I see it every day when I see that little robin on my daily walk.
If you are going through grief right now, I am so sorry for your loss. I know some people don’t believe this, but I do – they are with you. Look for the signs and you will see them. And always remember, in the words of my amazingly smart mum, “No one can ever take your memories away from you”.