I Believe It Was The Actor Nick Berry Who Said...

My nana turned 78 last Sunday, and we celebrated with a cemetery mass in Mount Jerome. Sure what else would you be doing?

She was anxious to get there ahead of time, though didn't fancy our chances of getting a seat. The gothic chapel is tiny - I remember it from my grandfather's cremation. We walked up the avenue and saw what must have been a couple of hundred people sitting higgledy piggeldy on headstones. Umbrellas bloomed as it started to rain, colourful nylon domes mushrooming amongst the graves. We took a pew, she on the headstone of a Dorothea ("I don't like to sit on the actual headstones" she said, as if she does this most Sundays, "but it's just the right height for my bum") and me at the base of the Wilde family memorial. The two women next to us were wearing binbags as raincoats and sucking sweets. They didn't offer us any.

Nana was struggling to remember the priest's name. They'd rigged up a PA, previous years having taught them to cater for a crowd. He was stalling, kick-off wasn't for another fifteen minutes and he didn't want anyone to miss out. Nana didn't fancy his waffle much. He gave good mass, this fella, involved the community in the ceremony and encouraged the congregation to join him in song. "I'm not like Robbie Williams or one of those fellas, now!" he joked. The oul wans didn't blink. I laughed. The PA broadcast in intermittent bursts and the crowd outside sang with him, filling in the gaps. "You'd need your Grandad here for all these old-time hymns" Nana said.

Had we had Grandad there we wouldn't have been there at all, we'd have been back in Mount Tallant cooking dinner. Grandad's in a wall, in what they call the "garden". We went down there after mass, to visit. It took us a few minutes to find the plaque with his name on. Nana pointed out the blank one beneath his, told me that that's where her name will go. She said it matter-of-factly.

We went to dinner in the Angler's Rest, because my brother had been there the night before and she thought the name sounded nice. She took her time on the stairs. Dinner was good, the waiter had a burst blood vessel in his left eye and called us "darlings". I dropped her home early that evening - she thought my aunt might drop by later. She was in great form, she'd enjoyed her mass and being treated to dinner by her grandchildren and their handsome squeezes. She went home happy, I went home in tears. I was anxious about starting my new job. And I was heartbroken for my Nana. She'd hate that, and I shouldn't be, because she's alright.

Review: Is There Anybody There?

Some films really make me miss my Crash Grandadicoot.

A Little Warmth On A Cold Walk Home

As I was walking down Sussex Terrace this evening, an elderly man tapped me on the headphones. "Her feet must be freezing" he said, smiling at me and nodding at the swan. "I'd say so" I said, caught short conversationally. "I know mine are". Happy to have gotten that much from me, he shuffled on.

He had such an ease about him that I envied him. It was something my Crash Grandadicoot would have done. This Saturday we'll celebrate the 76 years of his life, and mark a year since his death. The night in James' Hospital seems like aeons ago, but I still miss him like it was yesterday.

Memory Of My Grandfather

As I walked along the banks of the canal this morning, I listened to Thom Yorke's Harrowdown Hill. I hadn't listened to it on my morning promenade in a long time, because Harrowdown Hill was what I was listening to that morning so many months ago.

Every old man I see, in October-coloured weather, seems to remind me of my grandfather.

Aloysisus Wash The Dishes

It Took Two Pillows To Make That Jelly Belly

Tuesday just gone would have marked Crash Grandadicoot's birthday. He was fond of his birthdays as he was fond of Christmas - not for the presents (as he insisted that he already had everything that a man could ever want) but because it gave him an excuse to gather his family around him. I don't know why he felt he needed an excuse as not a weekend goes by where the small 2-up 2-down house isn't swamped by about a gazillion of us, but far be it from me to point this out. Maybe it was the excuse to dress up that he was really after. His Santy rig-out every Christmas was quite the thing, and he was a great man for modelling whatever winterwear he was gifted for his July birthdays.

I spent Monday evening in my Nana's along with my brother and sister, eating her out of house and home. We spent time catching her up on all our gossip and while I knew his birthday was coming up the following day, I didn't mention it. There was plenty of mention of him, as there always is, but not of his birthday. I knew that my uncle was coming over the following evening to bring her down to the Mount Jerome, where his ashes have been interred. She never thought she'd be the graveside type, turns out she is, at least on what would have been his birthday.

I thought about her on Tuesday. I thought about her all day. Wondered if I should call and if I did, what I might say to her. It's not like me - I'm never stuck for words with my nana. I thought I might text her instead, it's how I usually avoid potentially emotional or awkward situations; you can seem proactive and at the same time shunt the ball into the other person's court. And then turn your phone off. But I didn't text her. She only ever gets the first two lines anyway because she keep accidentally deleting the messages when she tries to scroll, but she's 76 (I think) so we'll let her off. What would I have said? Happy really fucking sad birthday? Thinking of you? She knows I'm thinking of her. And him.

I got a text from my mam that night, not because she was avoiding a potentially emotional or awkward situation but because she's in France. She was texting to tell me that she'd sat chatting to Grandad in a church that overlooked the local grandads at their boules (he played twice a week). She lit a candle and had a cry, but decided not to sing him happy birthday. I read the text and felt ... nothing. Swiftly followed by a sickening guilt at the realisation that I do not miss him as much as I should. And I carried on with my evening, read my book, went to bed.

This morning I am sitting at my desk in work, avoiding translation work and hiding behind my computer because I'm leaking tears as I write. I miss him much more than I had imagined.

I Didn't Catch The Bouquet, But

Saturday morning saw me running around town in the pouring rain and a massive tantrum, trying in vain to find something to wear to the wedding. I'd bought a dress the week before only to try it on on Friday and discover that I'd need to magically grow breasts overnight to fit it - I ended up wearing it anyway with a vest, a high-waisted belt, a lot of safety pins, tall stiletto heels and my cherry earrings to distract from my dog's dinner of an outfit. I'm told it worked.

I was anxious about the day already. The friend who was to marry is the same friend who lost his brother a couple of months back, and the last time I had seen his family was the weekend that they brought Conor home to bury him. That Sunday afternoon I spent with them broke my heart, I have never seen such appalling, consuming grief. I spent most of the afternoon on their couch with my sister and their four grandkids, delighted with their easy affection, wide-eyed honesty and sticky fingered dexterity on the Nintendo DS. I was worried about seeing the family again, selfishly uncomfortable with their grief and feeling bizarrely guilty about my own. I had mourned Conor in my own small way here and I had lost my Crash Grandadicoot that same week - weddings make me cry anyway so how the fuck was I going to manage this one?

I managed it just dandy, taking my cue from everyone around me. The day went without a hitch (save for the obvious pun) and it was as a wedding should be - happy, celebratory, lán beocht agus croí. The bride looked beautiful and her husband (eek! he's married now!) spent the day looking like he couldn't believe his luck. His brother Conor was remembered as he will always be remembered in everything his family do and I learned that grief (whether your own or someone else's) is not something to be uncomfortable with or feel embarrassed about. That his family can still take the time to make me and everyone else who was there on Saturday feel special amazes me in a quiet, ordinary way. They're good people for me to take my cues from.

I Probably Should Have Just Watched Hollyoaks

I came home this evening and sat down and listened to Nuala O'Faolain's interview* with Marian Finucane, and I cried.

I've been thinking a lot about death over the last while. I haven't turned goth or emu or whatever it is the kids are into these days, I haven't started saying rosaries or lighting candles, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to lose someone, and what it might be to die. Wondering if it brought relief to Conor, feeling horrified at how his death has affected his family. Hoping that it was a release for my Crash Grandadicoot, wondering how my Nana will cope with the loneliness of losing the man she has loved for more than 55 years. I spent yesterday afternoon with her and for the first time since his death I got the feeling from her that she was feeling very lonely, crushingly low. I miss Grandad, but I have been missing Grandad for a long time now, all through the long months of his illness. Now I worry for my Nana. I think of the spirit and resolve it took her to care for him for so long and I hope that the same spirit and resolve will help her to cope with his loss. But it's hard.

Nuala's interview seems to have stopped people in their tracks. It's easy to express sympathy, to offer kind words and hopes for the best. But it's very hard to sit and just listen. "Are you sure it won't give the people despair?" she asked. No, Nuala a chroí. You've made people think about what it is to be human - to be alive - agus is cúis misnigh agus dóchais sin i gcónaí.

*Broadcast on Saturday morning, it's been all over the Irish media since. Diagnosed 6 weeks ago with terminal cancer, Nuala speaks openly and with painful honesty about how life has been for her since her diagnosis. You can listen to it here or read the transcript here.

Review: Le Scaphandre Et Le Papillon

I brought my Nana to see it last night. "Good choice, a film about a guy who has a stroke and then dies of pneumonia" muttered my brother, referring to Crash Grandadicoot's recent loss (stroke, followed by, eh... pneumonia). On paper it looked like an abominably insensitive choice of film to bring a grieving widow to see but my repeated readings of the book* over the years reassured me that she would find something in it to lift her spirits.

And she did, very much. I know this because once we got home, she called everyone she knows to let them know just how much she had enjoyed it. "It was very good. It had subtitles though, and the young lad in front of me had such a big head that I kept missing the last word of every sentence. Still, I got the gist of it."

*I thought the same actually, and hesitated recently over lending her my copy. But it was that or Meet the Spartans, so I took a chance.

Fire And Brimstone

We brought Grandad to the church last night, and are to bury him this morning. I didn't want to go in to the funeral home to see him in his coffin - dressed in his suit and Aston Villa tie, the bruise from when last he fell still shining on his forehead, rosary beads knotted in his hands. But I was opening doors, escorting an elderly aunt and it seemed only proper to follow her in. Funerals are all about propriety, aren't they? I lasted all of two minutes in there. It wasn't Grandad himself that I didn't want to be around, it was everyone else crowded into the tiny chapel, the dim light, the uncomfortable silence. I sat outside instead, talking weather with the funeral director and golf with my two handsome little cousins.

My air of decorum lapsed between the funeral home and the church; my dad and I took a stroll instead of a lift and the elastic snapped in the waistband of my woolly black tights, meaning I had to spend the rest of the evening trying to walk with my legs crossed lest the tights ended up around my ankles (I eventually tied a great big knot in the waistband, making for an unflattering silhouette but a more natural gait). I'm playing it safe for the funeral mass this morning and wearing jeans and cowboy boots. I've to do a reading (as Gaeilge, so I may as well give a weather report as a reading from the Book of Wisdom, as I think I'll be the only one present who speaks Irish anyway) and the last thing I want is to trip over my own undergarments as I step up to the plate.

I am, however, reassured that no matter what I do up there this morning, I cannot possibly be more offensive than the priest who welcomed Grandad to the church last night. I've written about Fr. Sensitive before, after I enjoyed a particularly misogynistic sermon of his over Christmas. You might expect a degree of compassion from him on an occasion such as this one, but you would be disappointed. As well as getting Grandad's name wrong from the get-go, he indulged in an offensive, insensitive, irrelevant and entirely inappropriate sermon which lasted for the best part of, oh, a fucking lifetime. He spoke mainly about the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the nuclear family, denouncing promiscuity (repeatedly, loudly and in no uncertain terms) single parent families, "other things" and money, the root of all evil. He peppered his sermon with humanising touches, being holy does not have to mean being boring you know. Why, he himself enjoys the characters in the Premiership and has a friend video the football for him. "Alex liked football too" he admitted, trying to turn his self-indulgent rant into something that was relevant to the man we were there to mourn and failing miserably by again calling him by the wrong name. Had it been anything other than my grandfather's removal I'd have walked out, as would everyone else I spoke to after the sermon. As my brother pointed out afterwards, funerals are the Catholic church's no. 1 PR opportunity, where they can prove their worth by offering solace to a grieving family in front of a crowd that they wouldn't have on a Sunday - an audience, not a congregation. Instead people left the church yesterday evening relieved not to be a part of it.

On Love And Loss

Crash Grandadicoot left us this morning, and I am heartsore.

Stopped In My Tracks

I spurned a number of invitations to romantic drinks and dinners yesterday evening to spend a bit of time with my grandparents. Crash Grandadicoot is still holed up in James' Hopsickle, I think he may be going for some kind of record. I took a stroll up there after I'd finished up in work yesterday evening, full of apprehension and snot. I was in no mood for the hospital, for its stomach churning smell of sickness and cabbage, for the small talk or the non-talk with whomever else might be visiting. But I needed to go, I still hadn't been to see him and I was feeling guilty about it and worried - worried that he might have forgotten me.

He used to call me #1 Grandchild, you see. He still might, on a good day. I'm the eldest of his gazillion grandkids but with a nudge and a wink he told me that it was more to this pecking order than age. It was a joke at the expense of the other kids; but fuck them, I like to think that he was partly serious and that despite my tragic lack of coordination and/or interest in sport I really am his favourite. He forgets things so easily now though that I was worried he might have forgotten me in my three week absence, and that would break my heart. This weighed down my walk, I was cold and hungry too, tired and cantalach. My mam called to see where I was at, we had our wires crossed and I was now going to miss dinner in my nana's - I got angry with her, short, ended the call in a fit of pique.

I walked on, smoking furiously and seething quietly for no good reason, trying to concentrate on the music coming through my headphones and fighting back the irrational tears. And then I noticed the Hybrid Love Seat. It's a fence, essentially, a boundary sculpture between the flat complex and the Luas stop at the hospital entrance. And it's lovely. It's thoughtful, engaging and beautiful street furniture. I stopped walking, stopped sulking, took a few minutes to read the plaque about the work, took a few minutes more to admire the bronze castings and then took stock of all that was bothering me and resolved to go for a hot chocolate before venturing up to see Crash Grandadicoot.

He was in good form, full of piss and vinegar. He sang Happy Birthday to me ("What's that song they sing again? What does it go like?") and demanded that I put my new boots up on the bed to show him. He told my nana that she looked well in her yellow sweatshirt - almost good enough to *mwah!* (making kissy noises through his gums). I came away from the visit delighted that I'd stopped by and delighted that I'd taken the time to stop by the kids' love seat on my way in, to gather my thoughts and get my shit together. I'll not leave it 3 weeks before I call in to see him again.

You can read all the bumf about the Hybrid Love Seat on the artist's site.

Packing my Bags For A Guilt Trip

I haven't been in to see Crash Grandadicoot in almost three weeks. It started when I had a bad cold for the best part of a week and a half - I didn't want to bring it in to the hospital with me. But the cold cleared up, and eventually the cough cleared up, and still I haven't gone in to visit. I could list all the other excuses I've given (to myself, nobody else asks for them) but it would be pointless; all it boils down to is that I haven't been in to see Crash Grandadicoot in almost three weeks.

I've spoken to him on the phone twice, having called Nana's mobile while she's in the hospital with him. His voice is quiet and hard to make out, his conversation both times was limited to short phrases and easy smalltalk. Enough to let me know that he was listening and trying to follow what I was saying, not quite enough for me to be convinced that he could.

I've seen Nana and she's still doing an admirable job of holding her shit together. She's had some difficult conversations with both the hospital staff and her sons and daughters over the past fortnight and while things have not gotten any easier for her, there has been more of a focus on long term care which in a way gives some cold comfort. The crisis has passed and the hard part now for all of the family is learning to cope. Which I suspect is why I haven't been in to see Crash Grandadicoot in almost three weeks.

Off He Goes Again

Crash Grandadicoot has plumped for alternative accommodation this Christmas; the plush environs of St James' Hospital. Saturday was awful, he was very very ill, thankfully things look to be improving. I got the call early on Saturday morning when I was still struggling with Friday night's excesses and spent the afternoon trying to hold back the tears and the snot bubbles. Hopsickles aren't good places to be when you're hungover; the smell of overcooked cabbage and contagious disease permeates everything and turns your already delicate stomach. My sister, meanwhile, was doing her best to hold in the snot bubbles herself and to entertain the 17 members of my dad's family who'd arrived in my parents' house for our Christmas kris kindle. Bad timing.

These things do seem to happen around Christmas time, but it may be no bad thing. I feel lucky that there is so much else going on to lift the spirits, so much love and support on hand, so many welcome distractions. We had another family gathering this afternoon, the one over which he usually presides, dickied up in his Santa suit (stuffed with pillows) to dole out the presents. I had expected a subdued affair but he had rallied so much by this morning that everyone was in buoyant humour, so we drank a toast to his health and made with the merry. Hopefully tomorrow's turkey and ham will go a ways to restoring him to health, and he'll be back to my nana soon. She'll miss him tonight.

They're All At It

I'm at home today on study leave, trying to finish an assignment (due tomorrow), sticking pencils up my nose out of boredom and sheer frustration. My mam and my nana called over a few hours ago for a cup of tea and to provide me with a welcome distraction, or so I thought. Turns out that I was the welcome distraction, as they were both wired to the fucking moon. Crash Grandadicoot took another spill on Tuesday night and though he didn't need to go to hospital this time it has left the usual dint in his (and my nana's) confidence and it's becoming more apparent that he might before too long need to go into full-time residential care. She couldn't lift him from the floor and had to get a neighbour to help, it took all of three minutes but in that time he'd become even more distressed while trying to right himself.

This has happened before. Last time it was in the wee small hours of the morning, he'd fallen out of bed and she couldn't lift him from the floor. She went to call the neighbour for help and ended up stopping a man on a bicycle who was passing on the street. He came in, helped her to get Granda back to bed, made sure there was nothing else she needed or nobody she wanted him to call and then headed off on his way again. "Like a modern-day St. Martin de Porres, he was" she told me the next day, St. Martin being the only non-white saint in her canon (the cyclist was black). It's tiring and upsetting to see these incidents becoming more frequent for them. It's gratifying that she'll call here when she knows she needs cheering though (she phoned there a little while ago to thank me for the tea - "I feel like I've had a little holiday!") and if that's all I can do for the moment, so be it. I still have good craic with him even though he's talking through his hole a lot these days (imaginary dogs and and excess of toilets are the topics du jour - he reckons his house has 6 bathrooms at the moment... it has two) and we're all learning to cope.

Still, my heart went out to Annie when I read her post this morning, and to Terry Pratchett and his legions of fans when I saw his sad news. His humour, as ever, is good for the soul.

Not Such A Bad Day Really

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself in work today. No good reason and no point posting about it because as I've mentioned before, nobody likes a whingey bird. Late this afternoon I prised my fingers from my keyboard and slouched across the road to the chemist to get a prescription filled. For some reason this always seems to take an age, so I took a seat at the back of the shop. I was only in a minute when I guy came in the door and without even approaching the counter took a seat across from me. Cleancut, good-looking, he looked a bit worn out. He sat quietly for a minute or two until the girl behind the counter called to him. She knew him by name, asked how he was, told him he looked well and then handed him his cup of Methodone. Thanking her, he knocked it back, thanked the pharmacist behind the counter and headed off, saying he'd see them again tomorrow.

I've never had a junkie break into my home. Never had a junkie steal from me. Never had a junkie harass me on the street. I'm lucky. Luckier than they are.

On one of my visits to A&E with Crash Grandadicoot I spent a few hours with him on a trolley in the inner sanctum (away from the Infernoesque waiting room). In the treatment room across from where I was stood there was a girl in her late teens, maybe early twenties. Agitated and restless, she'd been told to lie and wait for the doctor but kept getting up from her gurney to switch off the light, which was hurting her eyes. The nurses were losing patience with her, and she was getting tearful. When the doctor came in to do a preliminary exam, he asked her had she taken anything. No, she insisted. "What are these marks on your arm?" "I had an accident. It was just an accident." The doctor headed off again and she turned off the light once more. There was a guy about my own age just out of sight around the corner. I had heard the girl greet him when she was first being brought through and now he called over to her, to see how she was. They started talking about a party they'd been to the night before, about some other girl who'd been there, strung out and covered in bruises. She looked a state, they said, and he was worried for her. It was obvious from their conversation that they didn't know one another well, friends of friends, that kind of thing. A nurse came to check on him and when she left, the girl spoke up again. "I'm really glad you're here. I mean it's real bad and I'm sorry and all that you're sick like, but still I'm happy to see you here. I get scared when I'm on my own. It's nice that we're not on our own, you know?"

He knew.

Walking home by the black dark water of the Grand Canal this evening, all I could think of was what a cold night it is to be alone, helpless or homeless in Dublin.

Crash Grandadicoot

I spent another night with the grandparents last night after himself decided a few hours in St. James' A&E would be a smashing way to spend his (and Nana's) Sunday evening. He slipped on the bathroom floor and banged his head, so it was off for a spin in the ambulance to get checked out. (There was nothing on telly anyway). He was discharged after a couple of hours with a printed list of symptoms to look out for and a mild sense of euphoria but I volunteered to stay overnight just to give Nana peace of mind. We called my mam before heading to bed, and Granda asked to speak to her, winking at me and telling me he was going to "wind her up goodo". He launched into a joke about how he was going to complain to the council about the fierce hard concrete they're using these days but lost track of it about halfway through and started talking bollocks to my bewildered mother. "Listen to him" said Nana, obviously mortified, "if anyone heard him they'd put him in a padded room". She giggled then. "He could fall over all he liked then, I suppose".

I'm going to get him a crash helmet and some kneepads for Christmas.