Granny Lost The Plot

Granny is knackered today.

Among other age related ailments, I have, as Bertie would say, “done me back in”. Lifting briquettes without bending the knees is not to be advised.

I feel like the ancient teddy bear you might see on the Antiques Roadshow - the bald patches, missing an eye, one arm dismembered at one stage.

Perhaps the Bloggers might have a virtual whip around and send Granny for a nip and tuck and then on to a health farm where I can recuperate in comfort. The wrinkles around the eyes need ironing too.

Then I think teddy is knackered because she has been hugged to death; loved to bits; never left out on a family outing; always in the centre of life.

Maybe we will leave the wrinkles too. They are mostly laughter lines. Some tears too.

I remember the tears as I sat with my lovely little girl in Harcourt Street Hospital. She had a seriously high fever I was told. Some infection? Meningitis? No - not that, the nurse reassures me. The doctors work on her. I sit at the hospital window. Snow is billing down. Already the cars in the carpark are snowed in and abandoned by the weary staff who must make their way home on Shank’s Mare.

Years and years later - more tears. I sit now in Temple Street hospital beside a tiny cot where my first grandchild lies. Arms rigid and legs stiff as a board. Feeding tubes stuffed in his tiny nose.

It’s my watch again.

The exhausted parents who are barely out of childhood themselves, have gone for a smoke outside the hospital door. They can chat to other parents and for five minutes they can forget about the horror story happening inside. I can tell that they have not taken in the awfulness of the news imparted by the kindly neurologist. The baby’s infantile seizures have done irreparable damage to his brain. No - it was nothing the mother was responsible for. No - it’s not genetic. We just don’t know.

Years later, we have a beautiful granddaughter too. She is as healthy as they come! And my grandson has taught me more about love than anyone else ever could.

I have had my downs. But I have had so many good times too. I just wish I wasn’t so knackered!