I guess I should be mourning but honestly I’m more sad about the life me and her could’ve had than the life that’s been lost.
I never really knew what it was like to have grandparents, throughout my childhood seeing them was very much a routine, a job interview almost. It was all about “what to say” and “what not to say” skilfully designed meets guided by my parents to ensure my grandparents provided things that my parents wanted them to provide them and in turn us.
Going to my grandparents on odd weekends became business transactions, designed to promote my parents lifestyles or hidden agendas. When there were “pure” moments they were calculated, an act that was created to appear genuine to regain control of situations my parents had very little control in most of the time.
My sibling, would bond very well with my grandmother, they enjoyed cooking in the kitchen together, discussing knitting and all other wonderful things I’m sure a grandmother would want instilled upon a granddaughter. I, on the other hand wanted to spend the downtime at my grandparents playing in the bushes, ripping up worms from the dirt and exploring the many acres of their lands for “hidden treasure”.
In hindsight, I was a normal child, until I wasn’t normal that is. I’d spend countless hours “fooling around” and causing havoc to the anal and prude lifestyle my grandmother had grown accustomed to.
I didn’t really know how to bond with my grandfather; though I’d try and usually I’d be sitting on his lap while he watched tv, but the family dog was rather protective over my granddad so would growl when I sat upon his lap for too long, I’d cry, I’d be told to get down by my father and I’d return back to the gardens hunting for more “treasure”, usually climbing the apple tree at the bottom of the main garden causing the apples to fall and my grandmother shouting out the kitchen windows for me to stop “playing up”.
As I got older, I grew more aware of the family I was born into. My grandmother suffered with BPD, my uncle suffering still to this day with Schizophrenia, my mother being raised in the shadows by her parents because of her brothers mental health; being the focus of the entire family for all her years.
I understood why my mother didn’t truly get along with my grandmother, I understood that I was the spitting image of my mother, I didn’t tick the boxes of my grandmothers expectations and she vocalised this on many occasions that she didn’t love me because I was “just like your mother”.
I could share more; but I won’t, I’m not ready to yet.
But here’s to you nan, for what it’s worth, I know my DNA comes from you and if you hadn’t have existed, neither would I.
theartofmadeline
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