Jeannie

"You are the music, while the music lasts." T.S. Eliot

It's ironic to me that one of the things I will miss most about my grandmother, is something peripheral to her as a human being. Her apartment had a north view over a park with a white church steeple that peaked up from the middle. In the midst of the fall colours, it was a visual oasis in what is often a soulless landscape in the city's extreme east end. Bordered by the confines of my grandmother's balcony window, you could be overlooking a small Virginia town for all you knew. For years, she had updates for my father and I about the family of foxes that lived there.

I got the call on Thursday morning. My grandmother had passed away in the early hours in hospital. There was a nurse there when it happened, which I was glad of, because I know my grandmother feared dying alone. I'm sure being alone and sick was hard enough and I always felt for her in this regard. I was glad she had the support network of friends, former co-workers and family that she did and that her immense suffering is over.

My relationship with my grandmother was complicated. There were familial and personal dynamics in place that we inherited, but we made the best of things which I am glad of. I've often remarked that it was quite something to have a grandparent still alive at my age, and in a similar vein, it's amazing to have said goodbye to my last grandparent at age 38.

In ways she could not have known, she inspired me. She was smart, very smart, and was still sharp as a tack at 88 years of age. I think often of the story she told me about her school principal begging her parents not to take her out of school. I'm still in awe of this happening in mid-1930's Scotland, when the societal take on education was that it was something you didn't waste on girls.

I'll always remember how much she wanted to be a nurse. She would have been a damn good one too.

I marveled at her knitting ability. My dad spoke often of how she'd knit in front of the television, her eyes never looking down at what she was doing and sweaters magically appearing over the course of a few days. He wore outfits for years as a child that she made all by hand. I still have the scarf she started for me and I'm going to finish it. I remember getting hand knit sweaters for Christmas. One year, she gave me one with a lovely brooch. It was a silver thistle with a topaz centre. It had belonged to my great-grandmother. I've never been able to find it again and I miss it acutely now.

I remember her taking me to what was then called the O'Keefe Centre to see Sugarbabies with, wait for it, Mickey Rooney and Anne Miller. Unbelievable. It was a fantastic show and a fantastic birthday present.

I remember her stories of the Clydebank Blitz during the war. I recall a story she told me about telling off another tenant in her building who had said that the Iraqees should "have the hell bombed out them." She asked them if they actually knew what they were talking about, because she had been bombed, and would never wish it on anybody.

I think about how she lost a child, twice, one as infant and one as an adult, just days before she lost her husband too.

She immigrated to Canada in her 50's, an amazing thing to do at that age I think.

I still have a silver locket she gave me for Christmas when I was twelve. I remember her saying at the time "Well you're twelve now. You're getting to that age." I felt so grown up, getting a piece of jewellery as a gift instead of a toy.

I feel as if I am fumbling for words here and not doing my grandmother justice. I am just overwhelmed with loss to the point of numbness. I am shellshocked with events of late.

Hell, my sister's dog of 14 years died two weeks ago too.

I once read a quote that said "An old person dying, is like a library burning down." How accurate a statement that is. In the end, our accumulation of experience and memory is left in the dust of our bones. What is it all for?

I don't know. All I can do is continue to carry people in my heart. All I can do is to enjoy life as much as I can and make the most of it, fundamentally uncertain, yet hopeful, that there is something beyond our last breath.

I have a great luxury my grandmother and other women of her generation didn't: I can do anything I want. I'm devoting some serious thought over the next while as to what that really is and I know if she can see me, my Granny will be cheering me on.