I'm (Not Really) Loving It...

Once I had turned 16, my mum allowed me to get a part time job. I ended up with two, but the first of those was a Saturday job,  in a well known fast food restaurant, who were recruiting staff for Christmas and beyond.

I had been in for a visit to collect my uniform, which was kept in a big cupboard and had all the necessary items for new recruits. Except new recruits who were a girl and my height. The standard leg length trousers were 29 inches, mine, at 6ft1, were nearer 33. I was given some that were the right waist size and told that some would be ordered in an appropriate length but these would do in the interim.

If you were the character in the red wig that was the advertising figurehead of the company, yes, you could have paired them with your giant comedy shoes and gone chasing after a thieving burger on legs in them - but for an already awkward sixteen year old girl starting her first job, not quite the dash I was hoping to cut. It was bad enough that green wasn't my colour.

Still, there was no choice other than to accept it and get on with it. The slightly less ridiculous trousers would arrive in due course but until then, these would indeed have to suffice.

I was given my start date, a Saturday shortly before Christmas, the day after breaking up from school for the holidays.

This was a couple of weeks hence, so that uniform was carefully hanging on the back of my bedroom door, ready for the comedy pant action that no doubt awaited it.

Then my grandmother caught a cold. She wasn't feeling good at all, and so I arranged to go and stay with her to look after her. She had only lost my grandad a few months earlier and had also made the painful decision to have their large and bouncy dog put to sleep because she had arthritis and didn't feel able to do the necessary to take proper care of him. We were planning to build an annexe on our house for her to move into, but work had not yet begun.

I packed some essentials, school uniform, toiletries, and headed to her house to keep her company and keep an eye on her while she wasn't well.

Normally I would have stayed in her spare room, the same room I had occupied every time I had slept over there, with the woodchip wallpaper that I couldn't resist the lure of picking the chips out of, the dangling light switch attached to the long fabric coated cable from the ceiling, suspended over the pillow end of the single bed that was always properly made in the pre-duvet era style of bottom sheet, top sheet, blanket, and eiderdown.

So much fun to be had swinging that light switch back and forwards, trying to make sure you didn't send it high enough to crack into the ceiling. It was an ovoid hunk of solid plastic with an on/off sliding pokey stick through the middle of it, and any misjudged swing would produce a painfully unsatisfying crack to the forehead if you weren't swift enough to dodge it when sitting up in bed playing light switch tennis.

The room was always icy cold, despite the ever present airing cupboard on the opposite wall from the bed, adjacent to an unused old-school fireplace that had a mantelpiece adorned with hand painted china trinket boxes, and interspersed with three Weebles, that would indeed wobble but never did fall down. This was the only concession to the fact that sometimes a child occupied the room.

The bed, however, was toasty warm, courtesy of the electric blanket that would be put on an hour before I went to bed and guaranteed to tip me right into sleep within a couple of minutes of scrambling into it.

The first few days I was there, that's where I slept, but after a few days she suggested I sleep in the twin bed in her room that my grandad had once occupied, seeming comforted that there was company when she went to sleep and woke up. I worried it would be weird for her waking up with someone there that wasn't him, but she insisted and so I moved into there instead. It was quite comforting for me too, being close to her so I was available if needed, and close to him, who I still really missed.

The first week she was clearly struggling with her heavy cold, but seemed fine in herself. We would eat tea, usually in front of her beloved Crossroads, which she rarely missed, she would knit and we would chat, and we would have supper and be tucked up in bed by no later than 10pm.

Then we would sleep, waking around 5.30 am, to the sound of Radio 4, as was her preference for alarm clock broadcaster, and I would attempt to fight off the sleep so I could get up, make breakfast for both of us, make sure she had eaten, and then head off to school, which was walking distance from her house.

My mum or her partner would attend to her if she needed anything while I was out of the house and then I would return after school, attempt to feign interest in my homework, have some tea, and then we would start the whole cycle again. I only went out on one occasion to see friends, which she encouraged, assuring me she would be fine for a little while alone. She never noticed that I sneaked into the kitchen and slipped one of her kitchen knives up my sleeve out in hope of finding an opportunity to express what I was feeling on my arm.

The guilt got the better of me, and I never did it, but in hindsight I probably wasn't the most emotionally stable person in the world, just doing enough to pass as one because other people's needs were greater. The knife went straight back in the drawer unsullied and she remained none the wiser.

Then one morning, I recall it was a Tuesday during the second week, it became apparent from the moment I woke up that something was badly wrong.

She was sat up in bed, Radio 4 as usual supplying the day's news in the best Queen's English, speaking in a manner far removed from her usual self. It seemed an effort for her to speak and the words she did manage seemed slightly slurred and disjointed. She was quite confused and disorientated, and was almost childlike in her demeanour. She couldn't understand why I was there and not my Grandad.

She wasn't confident that she wanted to stand by herself, so I helped her up to go to the toilet, which was when I realised that it was a little too late. She was seemingly unaware of this, and this another "ting" from the alarm bells that had already started ringing.

She became aware of her accident once she stood up and her wet nightie flopped against her back, and immediately looked ashamed and tried to mumble an apology. She was crestfallen. I reassured her there was nothing to worry about and helped her into the bathroom where I gave her a strip wash, towelled her dry and dressed her in a fresh nightie and underwear. 

I suggested she go and lie down a bit longer and lead her back into the bedroom, putting her into my grandad's bed as her own was unusable, then ran downstairs and rang home for advice.

My mums partner at the time answered, listened as I detailed what was happening, and said he would call the doctor out and would be round to help as soon as he could.

I don't recall where my mum was at the time or why she wasn't there - indeed it hasn't really dawned on me as odd until now, perhaps she was sorting my brother for school or due to go to work or something. I don't know and I won't ask her. It's not important. 

I tried to get my Nana to eat some breakfast in bed but she just played with it. I made her a cup of tea that she spilled  while she was drinking, and didn't even notice the toast turning into a soggy dripping mess on the plate below where the cup dangled from a hand that barely registered it was holding anything.

I don't know exactly when, but the doctor turned up and went up to examine her, and shortly after that, my eventually to briefly be stepfather number 2 turned up as well.

After a brief discussion and a phone call made by the doctor, I was instructed to go and get her ready as she would need to go into hospital, as it had been clear that at the very least she needed to go on oxygen. Rather than wait for an ambulance, it was decided that we would transport her in our car. 

A smoker to the last, from an era where it really was cool to smoke, her emotional crutch over the years had decided it was time to pay her back for all the years of service she had given them, and the result of that was the bronchitis she had now developed.

I ran upstairs, and helped her to make her way downstairs. It was cold but bright sunshine outside, and as we stepped outside, me in my school uniform and her in her brown winter coat, nightie and slippers, gripping my arm to stay upright, she announced that she needed the toilet.
Rather than try and get her back upstairs to the bathroom, we decided I should take her through to the outdoor "kharzi" as it was delicately referred to by my recently felled grandad, which was basically a cupboard with a loo built into the exterior of the house. I helped her in there, closed the door and moved away to give her some privacy. She finished up, came out and I helped her back out to the car where my soon-to-be stepfather was waiting to drive us.

As I opened the passenger door, and sat her down, I noticed a streak of faeces on the arm of her coat, but not wishing to hold the proceedings up further and figuring that the coat would be removed in just a few moments anyway, held my tongue. We weren't waiting for an ambulance for a reason, the time involved in trying to change her now would be wasted.

We travelled the short distance to the hospital, pulling up outside the entrance to the ward she was to be admitted to - and my mum's partner popped inside to ask for a wheelchair as she didn't feel able to stand and walk inside herself.

I was told to wait outside, so I went over to kiss her goodbye and reassured her that I would see her soon. As she began to be pushed up the slight ramp into the building, she grabbed at my arm, looked me right in the eye and said quite clearly

"You've all been so good to me."

As she let go again, the confused look returned, her eyes clouded over, and she was wheeled inside.

That was the last time I ever saw her.

I sat and waited on a wall nearby until soon-to-be stepdad rematerialised from the ward and I asked that he drop me off at school. Not out of some desire to catch up on the missed lessons, but because that's where my support network was, and that's where I thought I needed to be at the time. 

I joined my class half way through a biology lesson and spent the rest of the day hoping that the oxygen she was getting would soon sort her out and she would be back to her old self. I was shaken by what had occured but assumed that it would soon be rectified.

Over the next few days my mum was her only allowed visitor. I asked if I could go too but was dismissed with a "She's really not very well and isn't up to visitors" a couple of times. There was a palpable tension in the air but I kept going to school and doing my usual stuff in an attempt to ignore the concerns I had about the situation. 

On the Friday night, soon-to-be stepdad, my brother and I went to the cinema to see, I think, Ghostbusters 2.  I can't be sure it was definitely that because during a whispered conversation during the film soon-to-be stepdad admitted that my lovely Nana was not expected to last much longer. The rest of the film passed in a blur. I wanted to get out of there and really, really wanted to go and see her but was told that actually I probably didn't want to, it was fairly awful to see and it would be better to remember her as she was.

We came home from the cinema, and somewhat dazed, I retreated to my room, lay down on my bed, and let my gaze drift between Jason Donovan (keeper of all ny secrets) and the freshly ironed uniform ready for my first day at work the next day, which was hanging on the back of my door, all the while mentally begging any available passing deity or miracle worker to please help stop this happening and push her into turning a more positive corner.

I was scheduled for a 9.30-5.30 shift in the morning so ever delusionally hopeful, I convinced myself that it would be fine, she would come round and get better,  and I would insist on going to see her after work the next day.

I hadn't reckoned with the depth of her grief nor the emptiness she had experienced since my Grandad had gone. They were married over 40 years and while she was careful to mourn privately, she had been putting on a positive face to us.

The doctor who confirmed her death said that if he could write "died of a broken heart" as a diagnosis, he would have, the bronchitis alone was not in his opinion serious enough to have killed her.

She had lost her will to live and her real purpose for living when she said goodbye to my grandad. Despite our encouragement and plans to bring her to live with us, she didn't really want that, not deep down.

She just wanted to go and be with him.

She had no fights left that she had any desire to win.

Having eventually at some point dozed into an unsettled sleep, the household was awoken by the ominous sound of the phone ringing at 7am, and the flurry of activity that could be heard following the call, it seemed that the plan to go to work and insist on seeing her later was not going to come to fruition in the way I had imagined.

I sat frozen in bed for the second time that year, dreading and yet knowing deep down what was to come, and panicking that if what I suspected happening was indeed happening and I didn't go into work, I might as well kiss the job goodbye - they wouldn't care that my grandmother had died, they would only care that they were short staffed on a Saturday that close to Christmas. 

Shortly after 8am the phone rang again. This time it was my mum, who had been the cause of the flurry of activity as she dashed to get dressed and be at the hospital in time to be there for my grandmother's departure from the planet.   Soon-to-be stepdad answered the phone and then came upstairs to inform me, that unfortunately,  she had not got there in time, and my amazing, creative, loving  and devastated Nana was no more.

I was numb, but decided I should just go to work anyway, there was nothing I could do, so I might as well put a brave face on it and reasoned that she wouldn't have wanted me not to go, so I threw on some clothes, packed my uniform and made a dash for the bus that would get me there on time.

I leapt off the bus, rushed in to the restaurant, ran up the stairs, threw on my uniform, attached my name badge, adjusted my hat and ran down the stairs to clock in.

As I walked into the kitchen area the duty manager looked me up and down, cracked up laughing and yelled loud enough for everyone to hear -

"Haha! Look at your half-mast pants! Someone just died in your family?"

He couldn't have known, and despite the fact that I was slowly drowning in the bile rising from my stomach,  I bit my lip and kept hold of myself, barely. I politely attempted a laugh before he put me in the care and training of someone who can only be described as one of the least caring trainers I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. Her methods of training could only have been increased in severity had she been equipped with a horse whip. She set about "training" me on how to use the till, barking orders at me incessantly, and treating me as a blight on her day, until it was time for my break. I grabbed a drink and a sandwich, dumped them in the crew room, and made a dash for the ladies changing rooms where I finally cracked and broke down, safe behind the locked toilet door.

The duty manager had come upstairs to get some stock and had popped into the crew room to get something, and noticed my discarded untouched meal.

He must have heard me crying from outside the changing room because he knocked and asked if I was ok. By this point I was beyond ration so I came out and he took me into the crew room and brought me some tissues and gently coaxed out the truth.

I don't really recall the conversation but I do know that the trainer woman was given a proper dressing down and a formal warning for her behaviour towards me, and that he always felt guilty afterwards about his earlier comment to the point where he ended up being one of my staunchest allies while I worked there. I don't think I mentioned what he had said but it was the only other interaction I had with him up until that moment - so not unlikely to be easily forgotten. 

I dare say I wasn't in the best shape to be trained in anything that morning and to be fair to her, she wasn't to know the circumstances her recruit was dealing with, but I know I did my best to take it all in, aware that this was information I needed to remember. Even if I had been on top form, she would still have annihilated me that day, she just wasn't in the mood for a hellish Saturday shift babysitting a new person. But I might not have been quite so trying on her nerves.

It amuses me now to recall this - but of course it didn't at the time. Not the whole day, but the ironic black humour in the innocent comment that had preceded my first day in my new job.

In hindsight, I would describe the duty manager who delivered this unwitting stab wound as not dissimilar in appearance and personality to "Alan Partridge"- but a well meaning and kinder version. He was a lovely guy and later would have my back on a number of occasions, as I would defend him against others who mocked him. I missed him a lot when he left.

I always considered that it was my grandfather that I was closest to. I loved my Nana hugely, but my Grandad was the one consistent male role model and support that I had, and his loss decimated me. By the time I lost my Nana, I was so well versed with locking away my grief that it had become second nature, but looking back, I am so thankful that I had the opportunity to spend that time with her. Ashamed of my brief lapse into self-centred teenage angst, but so, so grateful for those days I had with her, and that I had the honour of escorting her from her marital home for her last journey and caring for her in the last days of her life. I don't know if there is an afterlife but if there is I hope she knows how much I loved her.

I attended her funeral, a couple of days before Christmas, as we slid into a non-celebration that about killed all of us, keeping going only because we decided it necessary to keep things as normal as possible for my little brother, only 9 years old at the time. All of us underestimated how much he understood about the situation and how much he had taken it on board. This would not surface until several years later - when his true feelings eventually surfaced.

On Christmas Day, my mum handed me fifteen pounds in cash, stating that my Nana had been intending to give me some money for Christmas and as she obviously wouldn't be doing that,  my mum was going to do it for her.

A few weeks after Christmas,  when sorting through her belongings, at the bottom of the wardrobe, I found a bag, with carefully wrapped parcels, labelled with each of our names. Mine contained a diary for the next year, with fifteen pounds placed inside the front cover, and also an alarm clock that continued to wake me up well into adulthood - but never with anyone from Radio 4 telling me the news.

My mum took the cash, as I had already had and spent the money, but I kept that diary for many years, and even wrote in it sometimes during the following year. I wish I still had it now, it would be interesting to see what 16 year old me had to say back then. It would probably be fairly messed up stuff, to say the least.