Life Trove: Farewell to Gran

"Gran always made you feel she had been waiting to see just you all day and now the day was complete." Marcy DeMaree

Memories of Gran (excerpt from letter from Jo - 2002)

I remember so clearly all Gran and Gramp’s yearly visits to Cape Town and all the excitement leading up to their arrival and the huge empty void that was left when they returned home.

Unfortunately this huge void that I am feeling right now is never going to go away but I have so many special memories of Granny to help me replace it with instead.

I remember, every year, without fail Granny would bake up a huge batch of meringues (glued together with strawberries and cream) for my school bake sale. In fact, I remember her making them for all my birthday parties as well. Granny was a fabulous cook. I can even smell, even now, all the wonderful roast dinners she cooked for us and the delicious crispy roast potatoes that always accompanied her meals. Her lumpy custard was legendry, although if I think about it, we all still ate it with gusto and would have complained bitterly if she had made it any other way!

I remember sitting for hours in the lounge at Epworth Road playing endless hands of card games with Granny. She certainly had a huge supply of patience as she taught me that there were more to cards than snap!! I have so many happy memories of them both in that house and I remember cycling round to swim in the pool, or to spend the night or just to come over and have a chat. We were so fortunate not only to have had them in Cape Town all these years but to have had them no more than 15 minutes away at any time during the past 20 years is also amazing.

I also remember the knitting bag that was always beside Granny’s chair. I certainly had a good few jerseys and bed socks knitted for me while I was growing up.

I remember how much Granny loved traveling round South Africa and how she and Gramps would head off on some coach tour to view the flowers, the whales or some beautiful mountain peak.

I remember how much Granny loved her yoga and how important her church was to her. It certainly gives me comfort to know that she is in a beautiful, safe place, free from pain and discomfort. I can just picture her now running around freely. In fact, she and dad are probably talking non-stop to each other catching up on all the latest news and drinking a toast of gin and tonic to all of us right now!

Oh, how I am going to miss Granny. She was such a loving person, so kind, considerate and gentle and yet so strong and brave. She really fought with all her might right up until the end. How lucky Sam was to have had her Great Granny for 2 ½ years. In fact, I think Sam also gave such joy to Granny as I remember how her face used to light up every time she saw her and how it even caused Gran to smile even when it was so hard for her to do! Gran, I will always love you and I will always remember you with a huge smiling face!!

Excerpt from a letter I wrote to Gramps in 2003 after Gran passed away

I also feel nostalgic when I think back over all my memories of gran and what she means to me personally.

I remember how excited I would feel when I heard you and she were visiting South Africa. I have a memory of lieing in bed with her when I was 6 and had just won my first book prize and she read me a couple of chapters. I remember visiting her at Epworth Road and telling her all about School and how she would listen intently to every single word – always making me feel like I was the most important person in her world right then. How she would ring me to find out how my test or match or play had gone- always thinking of me, always interested in my life. How she would cut something out of the newspaper that she thought I would find interesting or useful – often about something that I had mentioned months before. She never missed anything did gran.

And of course, I remember her delicious meals – especially her roast beef and Yorkshire pudding and veggies and trifle. Not to mention the kiersh and ice cream – do you remember that? Also sleeping over with you guys and watching old movies like The 39 Steps till late and then going to bed with a hot water bottle that Gran had prepared. And lots of later memories too. Like the wonderful, spontaneous speech she did at your 50 th wedding anniversary. The hug she gave me on the day I married Ally. The pride and love love in her eyes whenever she held Sam.

Gran’s speech at her 50th wedding anniversary (see all speeches)

All I want to say is that there are good things in life and I was blessed first of all with good health; that is very essential in a happy marriage. And then my second good thing in life was choosing my husband. And I know I made the right choice. I know I am illogical. And I know I am intolerant at times. And I shall still be illogical and intolerant at times. And I am not going to start saying sorry because most times I don’t think I am wrong! And the third thank you is for our lovely daughters. They’ve bought us so much joy and I thank you both very much indeed.

I’ve realised that growing up in any generation, it’s always the same. Whether you’ve chosen the right area to live in to get your children to the right schools, whether they are going to pass exams to go on, what subjects they ought to give up, and then there is the rushing to and fro taking them to guides, the skating, the ballet which they weren’t very good at! And that goes on today, it’s just the same, every generation is the same, it doesn’t alter.

After that, they left home and decided to go overseas. I was very happy about this and thought “What brave girls they are - but I wasn’t at all happy when they let us know that they weren’t coming back because they were going to get married. I cried buckets and Tony had a terrible time.

But then I soon realised how lucky I was that this happened because if they hadn’t done this, we would never have come to South Africa and visited our lovely son in law and grandchildren who have always made us so welcome. We would never have made friends with so many of their friends who have also made us so welcome. And the same goes with Canada. We would never have visited Canada and seen the beauties of that country and met the lovely people there.

So all in all, this life of ours has gone on at a terrific gallop and it gallops along too fast really, but all I want to do today is to thank my family and all our friends, both new and old, for giving us this wonderful opportunity of such a beautiful day.

Gran as a youngster