My Grandma The Centurion...Make That Centenarian!

  

My darling maternal Grandma Jose was 100 years old on Monday 15th August. Isn't she beautiful?!

Okay, so she doesn't look like this now but her spirit is the same. Still beautiful, still unbowed, still flirting, still making us laugh and laughing herself.

I've been trying all week to write this. I want to commemorate this special lady on her 100th birthday by attempting to capture on paper all that she has meant to me over the last 45 years. And how she has been here for me for the last 8, since my mum (her beloved daughter) died. 

But I can't write without remembering how I have felt watching her descend into infirmity and dementia and how I have mourned our lost relationship, just as I did with mum. 

When I think of my Grandma Jose, I think of sunshine & walnut birthday cakes; yoga & golf balls; doing the splits; raucous piano playing & laughter; gardening & love stories; flirting Flapper Girls & free spirits; endless knitting & sewing; mince & tatties & apple pie; her cavernous attic filled with treasures to be given away; eagle eyes & a sharp, honest tongue; beautiful, piercing pale blue eyes & nut brown limbs; pressed flowers & spidery writing; stubborn as a mule & much loved.

Grandma and I were always close. I loved her eccentric, exhibitionist ways and wanton disregard for the norm. I loved the thought of her sunbathing in her back garden, resplendent in her (by then octogenarian) birthday suit. I loved her (often cruel) honesty. I loved hearing over and over again how she and Grandpa had met.

My gentle, lovely Grandpa Bill died when I was thirteen. For the last 32 years Grandma has lived without the love of her life, and lived happily. Even now, when most of her words make no sense to me and she fails to remember who I am, the feel of her engagement ring on my finger brings a smile to her face.

With 45 years of memories to choose from, I'm going to select a few in an attempt to give you a sense of this remarkable lady:

My first one is of Grandma shouting, cross with me for attempting (at the grand old age of 3) to climb out of my parents' bedroom window. What? I thought the view from the roof looked good!

Then there were the endless childhood Christmases when Grandma appeared, a tweed clad Mrs Claus with a sack full of treasure - hand knitted dolls clothes and strange foreign objects scoured from the Church Bazaar.

Skip forward 15 years and picture the scene: I'm pregnant (deliberately), a twenty year old student half way through my degree. Too scared to tell Grandma myself, my dear mum (used to the lashing of her mother's tongue) passed on the news. 

I was summoned for tea. Still in my first trimester and feeling permanently nauseous, I was ordered to sit down to first vegetable soup and then a plate of Grandma's mince & tatties. I still don't know what was worse - having to force down the unappetising food in front of me, or enduring the baleful gaze of my disapproving Grandmother. 

Eventually she spoke:

"Did you know that you can have sex without getting pregnant?"

"Yes Grandma."

"Did it have to be Gavin, or could it have been anyone?"

All hopes of me finishing my mince & tatties disappeared down the toilet, along with the vegetable soup!

Having asked her questions and accepted the situation with her usual pragmatism, she embraced the role of Great Grandma with the same enthusiasm as she had me. I have endless memories of her and Max together: Jose teaching Max to play piano; the two of them digging intently, side by side in her garden; a teenage Max as enchanted by her love story as I have always been.

And on the years have passed. When mum died something died within Grandma. Something died within me. But as the pain has eased I've realised that every experience has a gift to give. From mum's death it was a strengthening of the bond that Grandma and I shared. The irony of which is not lost on me.

Mum and Grandma had a difficult relationship, with Grandma favouring her only son and mum always the dutiful daughter. Despite this, mum didn’t resent what Grandma and I shared. And I’m sure that the closeness that mum and I shared was the legacy of her relationship with Grandma. 

And so the dynamics of our relationship changed again. Now there were only two of us instead of the three generations of feisty women that had been. Grandma and I handled our grief very differently - she staying dry eyed and silent while I bared all. 

There were fights over mum’s husband and a silent compromise, a respect for each other’s ways. Without mum I took over the role of dutiful daughter, phoning every few days and visiting as often as the long distance between us would allow.

The memories of our Sunday morning phone calls, punctuated by laughter, still make me smile. 

The phone calls stopped only a couple of years ago. Having lived alone in the house she'd shared with Grandpa, and now severely blind, Grandma was finally persuaded to relinquish her independence and move to a care home.

They say that once this independence is lost that the aged often deteriorate quite rapidly. It seems as if this is true of Grandma. 

But I remember the constant cries of "Just take me out and shoot me!" issued over the past five years. In the end I used to reply: "Well I would Grandma, but it's illegal."

She'd had enough by then and longed to be free of her pain and her ever shrinking world. 

And in her own way now, I guess she is.

I think about life without Grandma, think about being the last of our trio - no daughter to continue the strong line of stroppy mares in our family. And I am sad.

And I am glad.


I am grateful to this remarkable centenarian for sharing her life with me. And I am grateful for the qualities that she has passed on to me - grateful for her DNA.