granny
I’m going home to Lewis in the morning so won’t be around for a while. My granny has taken a turn for the worse and it’s not looking good. The plane’s in a few hours so there’s no real point in going to sleep, hence this.
Cheers
Sam
I’m going home to Lewis in the morning so won’t be around for a while. My granny has taken a turn for the worse and it’s not looking good. The plane’s in a few hours so there’s no real point in going to sleep, hence this.
Cheers
Sam
June 27th, 2007 at 9:01 am
Sorry to hear it, Sam. I hope she is a ‘good age’, as we say, and has had a full life. Safe travelling. C
June 27th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Safe journey Sam and love and best wishes to your Granny
June 27th, 2007 at 10:07 am
So sorry to hear this Sam. Such a sad reason for the long journey home.
Bring a rain coat!
If you get any time on the way home and are near Edinburgh I be happy to meet up for a bit.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Good luck travelling, I hope everything’s okay soon, We’ll be thinkin of you
June 27th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Awh, sorry bout that. Travel safe and sure in the knowledge that we are all thinking about you and yours…
June 27th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Sorry to hear about your poor gamma Sam, I hope she’s not suffering. Be thinking of you.
FMC x
June 27th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
You’ll be in our prayers, dear.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
Safe journey, Sam. Sorry about your granny, hope she pulls through.
June 27th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
My thoughts are with you, and your granny
June 27th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Sorry to hear about that. Travel safe.
June 27th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
Safe travelling. Will be praying for you and the family.
June 27th, 2007 at 7:39 pm
Safe travel…best wishes.
June 27th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
HAve a safe trip, will be praying for your granny. Could you please give our love to Joanne Michael and baby Callum , thanks xx Nadine Vince Isla and Andy
June 27th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Your grandmother will be so glad to have you with her.
Blessings to you and your family.
June 27th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Take care of yourself darling, my thoughts and hopes are with you. Mwah!
June 28th, 2007 at 12:52 am
safe travels, sugar…prayers/good thoughts for your granny..
June 28th, 2007 at 9:15 am
Take care darling and give Granny a gentle hug from me. She’ll be happy to see you I know. There’s a time for everything.
June 28th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Sorry to hear that Sam. Take care.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Oh, dear. Take care, and we’ll be thinking of you.
June 28th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Saw this and thought of you (well your bloggings) http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainframe.shtml?http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/history_promo.shtml?link
Very sorry to hear your Gran is unwell, hope she feels better soon,
regards
June 28th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
Hugs and stuff, Sam. And more hugs. We just had the same going on with the eldest member of the family for the last few days. I hope things go as well for you and your gran as it did for us.
June 29th, 2007 at 3:18 am
God speed…my thoughts to you and yours
Jeremy
June 29th, 2007 at 6:20 am
Safe Home love.I’ll light a candle for you all.
July 1st, 2007 at 12:44 am
Hope she’s comfortable, Sam.
By the way, I just read your last post and because of an eye infection thought it said ‘Goldilox and the Three Bears by H. P. Lovecraft.’ Now that’d be something…
July 1st, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I hope you are ok, and your grandmother in recovery, I’m sorry to hear she is ill. Hugs x
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:49 am
Best wishes to Granny, and to you.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:51 pm
You have my best thoughts
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Have a good trip Sam and hope your gran recovers.
July 2nd, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Stay safe in Scotland Sam.
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Sorry to hear that you’re gran is unwell. Hope it’s not as bad as you think. Have a safe trip.
July 4th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Ah people, you’re all lovely. Thank-you.
She died last Wednesday and was buried on Saturday. Heavy sense of loss but, contrary to the modern assumption about feelings it’s not all that complicated, just loss and clotted love. We did a lot of sitting around and laughing actually. She was hilarious – full of personality and sharp as a tack. In later years, when she was growing forgetful, she would do things like putting the newspaper into the freezer instead of the butcher meat. Once retrieved though, she could still do the Telegraph cryptic crossword in less time than it took us to do the quickie.
My husband said she was one of the funniest people he had ever met. Always quite the proper Scottish lady, nevertheless she had a twinkle in her eye and was queen of innuendo and the double entendre. A lot of whiskey was drunk in her name this past week because she wasn’t fond of seeing a full bottle. She had a remarkable constitution, and a very peculiar metabolism as she always reminded us, for unlike other people, whiskey didn’t ever go to her head or muddle her thinking – instead whiskey went right to my granny’s feet.
I got her engagement ring and her button box.
Our house was built on the back of my granny and grandpa’s house so my brother and I grew up in the same house as them. Because of my mother’s illness and my dad’s working all the hours God sent, my granny and grandpa played a large role in bringing The Wee Niaff (my brother Francis) and me up. We had countless happy hours baking in the kitchen, dancing to her playing the piano, going for long walks with the dog with her and my grandpa – loads of stuff. My granny taught me to read, and to love reading. She taught me a lot about love and tolerance, stamina and forbearance without subjugation. She taught me history and Latin and love of language, respect for all people except “the mentally lazy and the willfully stupid.” She couldn’t stand them. She taught me, indirectly, that the conclusion a person comes to about any given thing is less important than the effort and integrity of thought that went into coming to that conclusion; about how important intellectual honesty is. She taught me many, many things and I could yack on about my granny for hours but a comment box is no place to eulogize someone. I’ll keep the rest to myself. This comment must be the superannuated version of looking at other people’s baby photos/holiday snaps (“…and this is where something really funny happened but I can’t remember what…and this is us at the airport…and ooooh! that salad was so delicious we had to take a picture of it”) for you lot.
Be round to visit you all in the next few days – just got back last night and stuff to do. Thanks for all your kind words – you’re lovely, each and every one of you.
Happy 4th, Americans! We’re taking the girls to see their first fireworks tonight.
July 5th, 2007 at 6:39 am
What a wonderful woman, Sam. You have a lot of her traits, if not all, methinks.
Ar dheis D? go raibh a anam d?lis.
July 5th, 2007 at 8:25 am
She sounds charming, glad you’re back and glad you sent her off in a style she would have approved of.
FMC
July 5th, 2007 at 8:43 am
Thanks for sharing with us what you did Sam. ‘Tis inspirational stuff.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:59 am
She sounds like a wonderful character, straight out of an Alasdair McLeod story. I grew up with my own Granny, and I have her button box.
July 5th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Lovely memories. A button box, how wonderful -I wish I had got my Auntie Effie’s -she was a seamstress and had buttons going way back, mother of peral and glass, and allsorts.
I can’t believe you were here and gone!
July 5th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
If there’s such a thing as a good death then she had one, Sam. You can see that the values she instilled took root, especially with your love of language.
July 5th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
From the description, she sounds a bit of a spark, and while you can keep those stories, she will always be a spark for yours, and the yours of yours, and on. When you look at your little ones, a turn of their chin, a slight smile. And when you look at theirs you will see it even more so.
But never worry about telling those stories, they are not the same as the last photos from cabo.
sic transit gloria mundi
July 5th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
God bless, Sam.
July 5th, 2007 at 10:41 pm
Very nicely said Sam. I have no idea what happens after we die, but I think a successful life will leave people with a lot of fond stories to tell long after one has gone. I had a friend that died young and I still tell stories about him, and often smile to myself when an old memory resurfaces – there are no bad memories.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:13 am
Jeez Sam, meant to come over here a couple of days ago. Sorry to hear your news and hope GATTB is up and wowing them all again soon.
Regards.
July 6th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Blessings to you and please post it out as a real post with more stories, it’s beautiful straight from the heart. One day you might be ready to share her story more publically and your writing about her is so full of life. I’m glad I came back to the comment box, thank you for sharing. x
July 7th, 2007 at 12:12 am
Put my family on a flight to Europe this week. I’ve thought about you and the bru-ha-ha in Glasgow. Hope you’re well.
Cheers.
July 7th, 2007 at 10:19 am
It’s the right thing to laugh and celebrate decent people. It seems like a lot of her personality has rubbed off on you, PCB. Your life can only be enriched by the influence of someone with whom you share a regular laugh. She sounds wonderful. Take care.
July 8th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Thanks for your kindness, everyone. You lot are truly lovely and I feel honoured to know each of you.
Although she’s not around any more I have stacked heaps of fabulous memories of her. I’m going to make it my business to do a mental cataloguing and sorting of them as best I can. She went suddenly but peacefully – much like I guess we’d all like to go – and with minimal suffering. Her nurse and doctor team were fantastic and there is plenty to be thankful for. Loads of people came to the funeral to see her off and that was nice. A lot of people I hadn’t seen since I was a child which immediately and unexpectedly tore down my grown-up facade and allowed the funeral to be a lot more cathartic in the way they often are for children. I howled like a baby when I’d thought I was wrung dry of tears but at the end of it all and after a nap, we had a great old evening remembering her and just being with relatives we hadn’t seen for a while. Some of my own very good friends came too and that was lovely. My granny got on famously with my friends. Often I’d be all ready to go out but I couldn’t get my pals to get moving from my granny’s sitting room where she held court. She held court unassumingly though, that was the thing; she wasn’t a grandstander like that – she was just a great craic and very interested in what everybody had to say.
I guess mine is a classic textbook case of grief but there are few people less textbook than my granny – kind, witty way beyond the brief of a Scottish granny, snobbish occasionally – quite within the same brief – deeply thoughtful, dangerously well-read, full of love with a profound sense of duty. a very good and beautiful woman was my granny, and I will miss her badly.
Her soul was faithful, Sneezy. Trouble is my own faith in a personal god who hears prayers or even gives a damn has been on shaky ground for the last few years. Bit of a personal crisis of the quotidian housewife sort, I’m afraid. I’ll spare you me hand-wringing!
Bloody hell guys, all your words are so thoughtful and they’ve really helped. You are wonderful, the lot of you. Now get going before I soggy up my keyboard and make my nose all big and red again! I’m supposed to be going out to dinner tonight and it takes at least an hour to get it to deredden.
What is it with grannies and their button boxes? I bet you button-box bequeathees all love the smell of them too.
July 8th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
Aw Sam, i’m sorry you will miss her, but I think she has imparted much to you that you’ll hand on to your wee ones, and that’s all any of us can ask.
xxx
Anna
July 9th, 2007 at 5:24 pm
We miss you, Sam. And by ‘we’, I mean ‘I’…because I really can’t speak for other people. I’m not diplomat or publicly elected political figure or Oprah.
July 10th, 2007 at 10:33 am
(((hugs))) i am so sorry for your loss, sugar
July 10th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Sam : have only just caught up with the news. Your granny will always be with you, as I fully intend to be with my grandchildren – and if they loved me half as much as you love her I’ll be so proud and happy. If you hadn’t already, you now have a guardian angel. BTW I’ve got my Grannies’ cameo and her arthritic fingers.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Just checking in, dear. We miss you.
Cheers.
July 10th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I love the idea of “dangerously well-read”, she sounds great.
July 10th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Thank you all. I feel like a right lucky blogger to know you lot. I really appreciated all you’ve said. I wish my granny had been able to blog – she’d have loved getting to know you all.
July 14th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
Was sad to hear your news, this poem has helped me you’ll know it when you hear it. Note to our american cousins autumn doesnt mean ‘my belly’
Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am the diamond glints on snow
I am the sunlight on ripened grain
I am the gentle Autumn rain
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds
In circled flight
I am the soft stars that shine at night
Do not stand at my grave and cry
I am not there
I did not die
July 21st, 2007 at 5:18 am
Paw, I wish you had a blog. That is so beautiful. Thank you, it is much appreciated. I wish I’d seen this earlier.