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Loss as the Relief of Anguish

He could finish a crossword like it was 1973

By S R GurneyPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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Loss as the Relief of Anguish
Photo by Guillaume Galtier on Unsplash

It's a strange time to experience normal-ness through the lens of life's current abnormality, which is the reason as to why losing the second grandfather of my living memory was no exception.

My First loss occurred over a decade ago when my family lost Peter Cornwall. He endured a heart attack whilst playing bowls with his wife and friends. His death was sudden but not unforeseen as he had a minor attack a few years previous, somewhere ironically around Cornwall. I remember walking through the front door of the house I grew up, entering the door to the dining room on the left.

My mother answered the call from my Great-Grandparents daughter (my mother's mother), and I distinctly heard the stop of time in my mother's tears. Crescendoing onto the floor, as she sat herself down as we all approached her, trying each of us to find some sort of clue to her distress. I believe that seeing her crying made us all well with emotion, sensing the dread of loss and heartache. We all sat around, and with tears strolling from my mother's eyes she told us, he was gone.

I being instinctively flippant said through tears "But whose going to tell use the cricket scores?" as if it was his job, or a reason to live longer. And I know that sounds cheap, but it's the fondness of these memories which grows thick to the heart and mind, like remembering him confiscating a magnifying glass from the desk in his office or the horse-racing statuettes and porcelains that gave character to his passions. He was an objectively sported individual, with charming wit, and he was for a long time the primordial Patriarch of the family.

I don't think there is a normal way to process these memories because I haven't thought about it in such a long time. Their house was always immaculately tidy and comfortable, and was the last house on the street, featuring a wide-garden, a two garage drive storage, a conservatory, and a three or four-bedroom home.

Their home sat nestled behind a brick-patterned drive, and a grass way that focused the eye with a 30 ft. tall healthy pine, waving you onto the property in the wind. Their home sat facing a wood-land wildlife area, that remained a public footpath into the further field beyond, it was the home of a lion. That he would take us out to find, terrifying us as children by slowing us to be deadly quiet and then sneaking into their nest.

Shenanigans aside, his loss was noticeable on me and my family. When someone shines so bright, it is as if we experience double the trauma at their vacancy.

Losing my second grandfather was not like that, I lost Roger Arrowsmith around thirty to forty times over the last six months. He was arriving back in the UK in the first months of 2020, and his wife had called us saying that she wanted to get him to a UK hospital as soon as they landed because he was becoming increasingly mentally unresponsive. Word jumbling and confusion, among other symptoms.

So upon their arrival I fared my mother to the airport to join her mother and father-in-law to the hospital, I left them wishing them the best outcome, returning to a worrying drive back home. The following events sort of transpired over and over again, between diagnosis and action, and there were endless discussions between physicians and surgeons about the best course of action.

Eventually, after a few weeks at home, he was due to go into a prestigious hospital to receive treatment for what they had discovered was a potentially cancerous tumour expanding on his brain causing him to experience Aphasia. After the surgery, he was vacant and infantile, mostly unable to do the normal things, he received 24/7 care for six months, being shipped from hospital to hospital, by which his wife, my mother's mother, that valiantly fought consistently for his dignity, which I say with pride and love. She was his second mortal angel because it is one thing to love someone in life, but another to see them through death.

But, what was he like?

Roger was the sort of person who could actually, and almost daily would, finish a newspaper crossword. Married my mother's mother some time ago, I think in the 25 year ballpark, both having lost their first significant others, to life's unrelenting depravity.

Despite this trauma, he was someone who you could rely on to be punctual, respectful and endearing. I loved thta Roger always made his wife laugh, she was so tickled by his humour. And I'm not being fantastical when I say he did have a turn of phrase or a joke for every occasion. And to frame this even more, I don't think there was a time in my life that I can remember him repeating himself. He was thoughtful, and curious, owning a most impeccable comedic timing. He was the sort of person that made dinners all the more brilliant because he'd quip into the conversation and provoke the sinewy human-ness we loved in him. His last meal out of the hospital, we spent together as a family, and he was invigorated by our love and care for him, he knew it too. That even if everything that could go wrong would, he knew we were there for him always, unconditionally.

The loss of my second grandfather was an unprecedented relief of anguish, as the coat of arms my pain adorned, and I wish he hadn't had to endure a prolonged departure. It's over now, but I can feel it already that I'm going to says something stupid at the next big family dinner like "Roger would have told us a good joke just then" and we'll tearily-smile and toast to him on the other plane, wishing him all the love in our hearts.

grief
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About the Creator

S R Gurney

25.

Graduate. Author. Director.

Inspirer to noone.

Compulsive Hypochondriac.

Elusive Dreamer.

Thought Hallucinator.

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