Family, Friends and all that Jazz

Right Here

My dear Grandad passed away in May this year.  I still miss the sound of his voice.  I have to stop myself from asking Mum, “How’s Gramps?”.  We used to talk about him most days.  He would call her 4 times a day.  Now we just have the silence.  

I miss him.  I have wanted to go back many times and talk to him.  It’s strange how the grief of losing him, is floating on the surface, ready to spill but rarely does.  Since his funeral, I have had one bad day.  Bad day is a very odd way of describing it.  It technically wasn’t a bad day – I cried but I was also remembering someone I loved.  Someone who loved me.  It was a song, playing in the background, of a movie I was watching. Without warning, the tears were there.  I was alone and didn’t need to be brave so I wasn’t.  I let it all out.

The following week, I shared my experience with my mum.  I was hoping we’d share a moment.  We did not.  My admission to having a cry over my Grandad was met with:

‘Well, I’m glad you didn’t tell me, as I was also having a bad time and I’m not sure I would have coped with you as well!’

Maybe it is my need to romanticize these moments.  Believe and almost need them to be better, when they are just what they are.  Odd and fractured conversations, with a family that can’t offer any real support.

I’m pleased that we had this beautiful conversation, on the phone.  It’s so much easier to sweep my feelings under the carpet, without the face to face aspect of it all.  After the call, I was left thinking about what I would do in future.  Just grieve quietly by myself and not mention it?  Sounds awful. Sounds cold.  Sounds like business as usual, has resumed back at the folks’ ranch.

It is such a shame we can’t share or connect like normal families do.  

Michael Buble recently released a cover of an old Nat King Cole song.  ‘When I Fall in Love’.  Whenever I hear that song, I think of my Grandad.  I picture him standing there.  Tall, healthy and happy.  It will always be a song that will remind me of him.  I may cry but I usually have a smile on my face at the same time.

‘When there is deep grief, there was great love’

I may not have anyone that I can grieve with but he left me, the most beautiful soundtrack, to his life; that I can visit with a smile anytime.  I don’t have to be brave or pretend everything is ok.  I can just turn up the song, close my eyes and he is right here.

His playlist may be the A – Z of easy listening but to me, it sounds like home.  We are together.  We are dancing.  He is right here. 

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.