My much earlier post spoke of the death of my paternal grandmother and the affect on her grieving husband and my father - her seven year old son. My father found it very difficult to speak of his mother and it was only years' later, when I was a teenager and my father had suffered and survived a heart attack that he spoke of her and of the time when his father nearly put an end to both their lives after she'd died, from what I understand was cancer of the womb. Her name was Maud, and my father said that he believed my grandfather loved her deeply. It's only now that I can fully appreciate what it is to lose the one person you deeply love. After 24 years of being married to someone I didn't love, then to find a man whom I adored and loved more than anyone or anything else in the world, I am there in my grandfather's shoes, feeling as he did, hurting as he did and understanding why he nearly put an end to his own life and that of his young son.
If, and it's a big IF... there is life after death, then my grandfather is now reunited with Maud and my father is now reunited with my mother. My father never felt animosity towards his father for what nearly happened, he always said, that if it was his fate to die that day then he accepted it. He trusted his father and respected him. He also said that even though he was only seven years old, he understood his father's grief, because it was his own grief too. Quite something for a seven-year old! But then, my father was special.
One day I might be with my lovely man again... when - I don't know.
2 comments:
Jenny, your Dad sounds like a very special man. And your grandmother is beautiful - what an atmospheric picture.
Like you, I could never have imagined how awful losing a partner could be - how profound and far-reaching the consequences, and I can quite understand his feelings as your grandfather stood on that bridge.
So sad to hear tonight that Mark Speight, the TV presenter, had apparently killed himself, unable to live after the death of his fiancee. The papers will be full of it tomorrow no doubt, but I don't think anyone who hasn't lost a partner will really understand what drove him to it.
Grief is very hard to deal with. I lost my mother this past year. I miss her terribly and cannot think of anyone in this world admired and loved more. I still grieve and probably will for a long time. I do believe in an afterlife, and hope for you to be reunited with your love one day.
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