onlyemma's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Grandad I haven't written in here for a long time, I know. It's just that things have happened. Ok, firstly my grandad died 3 days before Christmas. Even though we all knew it was coming because he'd been ill for so long, when it actually happened it seemed surreal. Two Sundays ago my mum was woken up at 3am by a phone call from the hospital telling her we all better get there quick because grandad's health was going down-hill very quickly. Five minutes after that phone call, he died; I think I was sitting on my parents' bed at that time, watching my mum frantically trying to find her clothes, and I recall saying, "oh my God, this is it", over and over again. And it was it. That was my grandad's finale. By the end, he didn't even seem like my grandad anymore. The last time I saw him he was so weak, he couldn't even speak, let alone move. He could no longer swallow either but putting him on a drip could make him even more uncomfortable, so he was starved and dehydrated. And he was so confused, he didn't recognise anyone. My Nanna said to him, "Ro, who's this?" and he looked at me and I could tell he was concentrating hard, and he mumbled, "I couldn't say". My heart broke. Nanna said, "it's Emma" and he smiled the biggest smile I'd seen and said,"aah Emma", and he was crying, but his face didn't look like he was. His face was expressionless, but he had tears running down it, so I wiped them away with my sleeve and told him I loved him and not to worry too much. And the last thing I recognised him saying was, "you know I love you don't you?" and I told him I knew, then he started singing. When we left him he was asleep because the nurses had given him some more drugs. I kissed his forehead and touched his hand and then as everyone else was saying goodbye, I looked through the little notebook he'd brought with him when he first went into hospital. It had some phone numbers written in it, a little bit shakey, but legable. Then there was some writing that he'd done when he'd got worse, and it looked like he'd been trying to write a diary entry. The words me and Kate could figure out were, "today I had the pleasure of meeting" and then, "mother" and "Dolf", which is the name of his brother. On the back page he'd tried to draw a picture, but we couldn't tell what it was meant to be. It looked a bit like two balloons on strings, but I'm sure that wasn't what he was aiming for when he drew it. Maybe it was his bike. He loved his bike. Anyways, life's been tough since grandad died, although, as I've already said, it doesn't quite seem real. Except maybe at Christmas. Everyone was quieter this year and we all noticed that my nanna had signed the tags on the christmas presents from grandad as well. The only thing that seemed to cheer us up slightly was when Bethanie got her dance mat out, but I, and I'm sure everyone else, was thinking how much Grandad would love to have been there to see us making fools out of ourselves on it. There's no doubt that he would have had a go himself. I miss him so much. There's a grandad shaped hole in my life now that will never be filled ever again. 6:24 p.m. - 2002-12-31 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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