Today was the day my Grandmother died.  Very nearly 100 it wasn’t really worth her hanging on for much longer, especially after her husband died 38 years ago.

She had 4 children, one of whom died yesterday, 15 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.

I saw her today, she looked very old and small but not in pain or sad.  She loved all her children very much but had a special connection with my dad so it seems quite fitting that she died almost exactly 24 hours after he did.

Some short memories:

• A small old woman dressed in green knitting on the sofa with Countdown and Deal or no Deal on.
• Blue plates with lettuce, tomato, boiled potatoes, coleslaw, chicken and salad cream. Knives and forks with bone handles.
• Leaving for university 9 years ago and her saying that the one thing she would like before she died would be for me to be baptised (sorry, didn’t happen, not likely to, don’t think she minded)
• Sitting in the corner of her sitting room counting hundreds of pencils from her collection.
• Bromley’s soap and lavender.
• One of the only people I know who can bend the top segment of her fingers independently from the rest of her fingers.
• Telling me that she had a special trap door in the middle of the floor that she kept children in.
• Randomly announcing another vaguely famous person that we are related to.
• Her smile when I brought back a picture from Trinity College, Dublin, of the memorial plaque to her father who died in the flu epidemic of 1918.
• Turning to my brother during Star Wars when Yoda has his first light sabre fight and both saying ‘That’s Gaggy.’
• A scrunched up face when I suggested that she was at least 10 years older than she was whenever I saw her.
• Feeding her chocolate buttons, showing her pictures of her garden and her telling me and Dad that she loved us 5 weeks ago, the last time I saw her alive.
• Sitting tapping her fingers together saying ‘People can be so kind.’