chariot of fire

Love this. It makes me think of pushing my Granny about the Greenock shops as she cursed at me for being too clumsy with her wheelchair.

She often talked as if it was a square go. When my Ex first met her she thought the two of us were having a blazing row, instead of a conversation. She loved fiercely, in her own way. Her life had been hobbled by a fall that then led to a broken hip after falling again from an operating table. In this sense she was really unfulfilled and took a lot of pleasure in her children and grandchildren's lives.

I spent a lot of my childhood staying at her house. She was either chair- or bed-bound and would get about with a walking frame. She loved playing cards. She loved her Mills and Boons. She loved the tennis. Indeed she adored MacEnroe, especially when he would kick off at Wimbledon. She would feign outrage and start yelling at him on the telly, then light up an Embassy Regal and chuckle "the wee bugger" affectionately.

I had a very close relationship with her and even lived with her for a while when I was 16. I became an expert tea maker because I had to make her a good one in her china cup. We had our routines and it involved cards and telly mostly. Friday night chippies that I had to wait until A Fine Romance finished and dash up and get it before Auf Wiedersehen, Pet started.

I phoned her up sleep walking once which must have terrified her. Seemingly she knew it was me and calmly told me to hang up and go back to bed. She loved to tease me when I was younger too. My wee serious face when she sang:

"Gordy Pordy Pudding the Pie, kissed the girls and made them cry!"
"I never Granny!" Every time I would get all huffy about it.

When she got very ill she would ask me to wash her legs for her. As I was bathing her like a supplicant before a Queen she would remind me that it was a special honour that she was asking me to do this. I knew it was. The same as it was when I went every Sunday for dinner and had her amazing gigantic Yorkshire pudding. The same when I was the one to put up her Christmas decorations.

She was loved by those close to her in that same twisty roundabout way that she showed her love to them. By shouting matches, loyalty, huffs and reconciliations. A drama, maybe she always needed the drama in her stationary life.

She died the year after I was married, and my daughter is named after her. As she lay dying with the family all around her last words were "I'm falling".. and she fell into that great unknown place where we will all follow. As she had fallen in her life and this had curtailed a great force for life that she had. She had no where to put all this energy. She was frustrated and it showed in what she demanded of her family and friends around her. But she loved us and we knew it.

Late on in her life I was up at her house and she was there in her chair. She was staring out the window, which would be her view on the world for most of her day. She said,

Autumn leaves fall past my window, Autumn leaves are gone ...

I asked "What?"

And she said, "Ach, don't listen tae yer daft auld Granny!"

But we did. We always did listen.