My grandmother died today.

Well, technically she died yesterday, but I got the phone call this morning. So, for me she died today.

Jo answered the phone and it was my dad saying he had "bad news", Jo said it almost made her cry. Not because she knew my grandmother particularly well, and not because she really knows my dad particularly well, but it just pulls at something inside.

It's strange. I hadn't seen very much of my grandmother, Peg, for quite a long time, I saw her at Christmas the year before last and then again when I was over in the UK in March, but that was the most we'd been in touch for a long time. The last time I'd seen her before that was at my grandfather's funeral, and that was probably one of the first times I'd seen her in years. So. it's not as if we'd been close recently, but when I got into work this morning I realised after an hour or so that if anyone asked me how I was I'd just cry. Instead I came home, thinking I should spend some time dealing with this, doing whatever it is you do to make yourself feel better - after all it's not like I'm likely to make it home for the funeral (I'm not sure what the point would be, but I guess if was on the other side of it I might see it differently).

And now I don't know what I feel, or why. Part of me wants to "have a good cry" and part of me says "stop being so bloody self-indulgent". I guess one or other will win, eventually.

When I left the UK I was resigned to the fact that there were some people I knew it was unlikely I would see again, but this is a nasty reminder that I have moved away/shifted my life. That I'm not there, with them. And that what I left behind is moving and changing and shifting without me. I think it's easy to walk away from something and somehow think that it stays the same, unmoving and static, and that when you come back nothing will have changed. Your friends and family will still be there, and they'll welcome you with open arms because they've done nothing whilst you've been away except wait patiently for you to come back (because of course you are the most important person in the world). And then someone dies, or something significant shifts, and suddenly you realise that you're not there and there is nothing you can do about any of it. You're just on the outside now, and it was your choice to leave. All there is now are a series of intermittent phone calls, emails & promises of a visit, and the realisation that this is reality without those people you just took for granted. Loved immensely, but took for granted and assumed would always be there.

I don't mean that to sound as harsh as it may have come across. What I mean is that it is difficult and strange to start a new life in a new place without the people around you that you love and have relied on for years, the people who tell you that you are doing the right thing, that wind you up when you know you've done something stupid and that simply hang around because they like your company and you like theirs. The people whose love you assumed was yours, simply because it had been for so long.

And then something happens that reminds you of what you've given up, and you grieve for it. And with a bit of luck you pick yourself up afterwards, be bloody grateful for having had that in your life and look forward to what you might have.

But, the most important thing, despite the death that has made me get so introspective (and un-British), is that the reason I am feeling so sad is that I do genuinely miss those people (and hopefully, they will know who they are if they read this) and I know that, unless I try really hard to fuck things up, they will always be the ones I can rely on.

S
xxx