Grandad

   Writing this really helped me deal with the events described in it. I thought it would be nice if the first proper thing I posted was one that I think is of a very high quality. I read it to Grandad while I sat and had a glass or two of my favourite wine. It was a difficult thing to do but important, I think. Also rather cathartic.

GRANDAD

Plato said that there’s reality, and then there’s one’s perception of reality, and then there’s one’s thoughts based on one’s perception of reality, and then there’s what one writes based on one’s thoughts based on one’s perceptions of reality. So what I write is necessarily distanced from reality. Brecht said that being distanced from something helps one from being overwhelmed by any emotional response to it and lets one remain an intellectually engaged being. These are both important to me because:

On Monday to Grandad’s hospital bed I sent him a text, and the sent message read:

“You’re surrounded by nurses and matrons, are you taking the opportunity to perfect your Kenneth Williams impression?”

It’s not really a text that should carry a lesson.

But on Wednesday, as Mum’s telephoned words reverbed in my head and filled me with dread and filled me with lead and led me to flop on my bed,

I realised that those words could have been the last words that I said.

And if that were the case,

Then the second last words I’d said have said, all unknowing

Would have been:

“I hear you’re researching the NHS for your next letter to Mr Selous, MP. How’s it going?”

And the third last words? The last said in person?

Something nice about my suit said in late December?

I can’t remember ...

How far back would we have to go before we came close to,

Came remotely sodding close to:

 “Grandad, I love you”?

Because it’s true.

Though it’s built on foundations of gin and caramel-vanilla bavoire and Winnie the Pooh,

And on beards, which are cool,

As any fule kno,

And on arguments about the Alternative vote -

“You’re an old bigot!” and “You’re a young scrote!” - ,

And on Haggises, which are a creature that feature only in Scotland -

They have four legs, two of which can run and two which just hop, and

On one side they’re shorter so they must stay on inclines

Where they’re prey for foreign men in sporrans who wield ferocious bagpipes -

But this won’t make sense to you.

It didn’t to anyone else.

Doesn’t;

 I must use the present tense.

Because, as Grandad said,

On Wednesday,

Over the phone,

In faux-cheerful tones:

“It’s alright, son.

 I’ve got cancer

But I’m not dead yet.”

That was true when I wrote it but now it is less so,

Because Grandad and I spoke again a little while ago

And I did say “Grandad I love you.”

 And I also said “Goodbye.”

Reluctantly.

Because although I probably can

I don’t want to manage in my new, Grandadless life

I want to scream at the grey, unfeeling sky

And demand the intervention of a God that I

Know full damn well that Nietzsche killed

And to drain my glass as soon as it’s refilled  -

But I won’t.

That would be terribly infra dig.

One does not drink wine as though it were water.

But I will do something which I think I ought to do:

I’ll fulfil a promise to eulogise in Latin.

So I’ll leave behind these dodgy rhymes

And end by squeezing that in.

‘That’ being this:

 'tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris aevi
quod super est cunctis privatus doloribus aegris.’

That’s from Lucretius, and the ancient poet’s saying

“You’re at peace in your lethal sleep

And now free from death and aging.”

This, though crudely rendered, means:

Don’t be sad a life has ended;

Enjoy memories of what has been.

   One hopes you're well,

      yrs,

      ADWoodward