The Search For Enlightenment

March the thirteenth always stirs up the saddest of memories for me and for my family. It is exactly twenty two years ago today, that I lost the second most important lady in my life, my paternal grandmother. Just to make it even worse, if that were at all possible, ironically, March the thirteenth 1992 was a Friday, probably the worst Friday the thirteenth ever.

She was the most wonderful grandmother anyone could ever have had. She looked after me when I was very young, when my Mom was suffering from Tuberculosis, at a time when it was often fatal. She was a tweeny, a maid between stairs, in the days when real-life Upstairs, Downstairs or Downton Abbey was a lot less romantic that it is on TV today. She was married to my grandfather Walter, back when Wally wasn’t a derogatory name.

She lived in a council house in Erdington, Birmingham, never owned a car, never really had two pennies to rub together, but was dignified and always proud of the way she looked and the way she kept that house. I spent many, many happy school summer holidays there, and remember being spoiled rotten.

She made the best bread pudding in the world, always had tinned peaches or pears and trifle on the tea table and knitted me more school jumpers than I can count. We went on lots of holidays together as a family, but never once outside the UK, in fact she may never have been abroad in her whole life. She was never happier than when she had something to worry about, but she was always happy and full of love.

She was just wonderful, was always there for us and is greatly missed. It makes me happy to know that she is back in the world somewhere and I know she will be spreading love and light wherever she (or he) is. We miss and are thinking of you Nan.