Remembering Granddad with Jewellerybox

A patriarch has fallen.

A man who has been around since my earliest days has died. 

My Granddad. 

It's the way of the world, it happens to us all one day, we were not built to last forever, but you can't help feeling the emotions that come with this fact. 

Receiving the phone call that you knew would one day come, but still the shock and resounding feeling of your stomach falling down and down, as though you were riding the loops of the world's largest roller coaster just keeps your stomach churning even after the call has come to an end. 

Explaining death to your child and how he won't be around any more, only for him to then start pondering why people have to die at the young age of 6 years old. It's been a question on his lips since I had to break the news to him. 

His response to the news that his Great Granddad had passed was one of the sweetest and most innocent things he could have said, but that is my boy all over.

He's right, he is wise beyond his years, and we do have to remember him the way Lightning McQueen remembers Doc. We have to remember the family holidays, the funny things he did and said, his love for books and local history and we have to remember that he is now at peace. 

He is now free from the regular falls.

He is now free from Alzheimer's. 

Remembering is the most important aspect of it all now, and I am beyond glad that I had the time and the freedom to make those weekly visits to his care home. He always seemed surprised that I had not only found my way there, but had driven there myself, but he never ever forgot who I was and he always seemed happy for my visits. 

We sat with a cappuccino and put the world to rights, we had similar conversations each and every visit, and he tried he darndest to get his head around what a blog was each and every time. In hindsight I was very lucky that he knew who I was, because that could have vanished at any given time, but he remembered those closest to him for his entire life. 

Right up until the very end.  

He might not know where he was most of the time, but he knew us. His family. 

One visit he was convinced that we were at the airport and he was flying off somewhere for a long weekend, and he thanked me for waiting with him. Another time he thought that the care home dining room was a restaurant and he suddenly worried about how we were going to pay the bill, and instead of upsetting him I told him that it was all fine and I would sort it. 

Alzheimer's might have made the here and now confusing for him, but behind that hazy mist was my Grandad just as he had always been. Clever, witty, funny, strong, independent and stubborn (it's a family trait). 

Behind my Granddad was a family who had his back, just like he had ours all of those years. 

Now it is all about remembering. I am lucky enough to have a few of his trinkets scattered around my home. Photographs, the glass drink coasters and some of the furniture he had to pass on before he went into care. 

I have been thinking about ways I can help my family remember, while we were cleaning out his room back in October I was looking for a particular family photograph, it was one I had gifted him only a few short months ago, but it wasn't to be seen.

You see my Granddad was always packing his room up because he thought he was going to be leaving (he didn't know where, but he was adamant all the same), and in one of those moments he had packed all his photographs away. It was found by my younger sister, and I felt awful asking for it back, but I had set my heart on having the frame back at home with me. 

I could see my request had upset her, I felt a tinge of guilt. Since then I have wanted to make it up to her, and when JewelleryBox got in touch I knew exactly what to do.

I picked out 2 lockets, one for Alice and one for my Mum. Inside I have chosen a picture of them with our Granddad, I chose the lockets based on what they would personally choose. My Mum loves Angels, and I picked my sisters based on something that she could wear with absolutely everything.

The finished lockets couldn't be more perfect, and each of the recipients were so happy with their individual gifts. 

Sterling Silver Diamond Angel Heart Locket on Chain

Large Matt Sterling Silver Heart and Vine Oval Locket

The shock has started to subside, but I still find it hard to believe that he is no longer a short drive away, he can no longer tell me about his younger years and he is no longer around for a cappuccino to put the world to rights. 

What I find rather incredible, and I was lucky enough to receive over the weekend was a document that my Granddad had compiled over the years, a document filled with his memories and our family history along with stories and facts that I never knew.

It's all about those memories now, and boy do we have some amazing memories.