All Up and Down: A week gone mad

Friday and I find myself reflecting on this crazy week. Aging Don had been in ICU for about five weeks, barely hanging on to a shred of life. Quad heart bypass. Pneumonia. Lungs pumped. Kidney infection. Blood transfusions in an attempt to up the ante in his body's fight against bugs. Induced coma to give his body a break. Life support. Switched off a few days ago with his family present. His daughter Mabel (my youngest grandchild's other grandmother) had returned to the Arab Emirates for one day when she had to return. Shame, the old man was frail. It was his time to go. But so it is that even when our loved ones are busy dying, we cling to the hope - that tiny thread of hope - that they may suddenly recover against every single odd stacked against that happening.

From the moment Francine-Rose was born, I found myself a nanna in the midst of a host of other nannas all vying for the same thing - the baby. Quite odd. Penny could not make enough blankets for Francine - and they were all meticulously embroidered on her home-embroidery machine. Oh it's new - state of the art and takes up a whole room. The couple were so inundated with baby blankets from Penny that even during the filming of the after-event of the birth, Penny stood at the nursery entrance hurling more and more baby blankets at her grandson. You can actually see Wade fighting them off in the video!

Where were we? Oh yes, Don was cut off from his umbilical cord of life support over the weekend.

Tuesday: Told Francine-Rose (all of two years old) that Don had gone to be with the angels. Waited for her reaction - her reaction was to leap down on me from the window sill giggling and shouting Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.

Tuesday evening: My daughter came home from work and announced "Mother, you are NOT to tell Francine that her great grandfather has died and gone to be with the angels or anything like that. Penny, Mabel and the family insist on breaking the news to her. They say it is THEIR RIGHT".

Did I tell her what I had done? Not then, but I did later when she was irritating me. She was furious. How did I know that I was not to tell Francine who is still oblivious to the fact anyway? She yelled at me for trimming her fringe two weeks ago as well.

Wait a moment - it becomes more complicated than this. Wednesday evening I am told, is his funeral. Odd time, but it was not a funeral. It was not even a service. It was something else. I don't know what it was. We were not invited. Only my daughter was. I was left to take care of Francine as it would be "too emotional" for her. Well, I can hear you thinking - WHAT was it? Sounds to me as if one of Don's friends read tributes to Don written previously by the family and it was held at...The Yacht Club. At same-mentioned club and after a slide show of photographs of Francine with Don - Francine (2 years old I remind you) was declared to be an honorary member of The Yacht Club and have a yacht of her very own named after her - THE FRANCINE-ROSE. I kid you not.

In the blink of an eye, this crazy week was not about Don's death or playing merrily with the angels - but all about possession and control of my grandchild. Oh yes, btw she is my grandchild too - especially in the middle of the night when she is unceremoniously plopped into our double bed. (I am still trying to work out and have been for 40 years now, how an infant or toddler can take up an entire double bed perhaps leaving you with an inch to try to perch upon and fall mercifully asleep).

And so the War of the Grannies continues, but I am holding my peace. I was going to end - but no, I have something else to tell you before this portion of the saga ends. When Don's ashes are ready...(to call a spade a spade - after he has been cremated along with others and you think you have only YOUR loved one's ashes but in fact they are all pretty mixed up and no-one ever tells you this)... well when his ashes are in his family's hands, The Sneves will sail forth in a magnificent yacht out into the deep sea with a FLEET of yachts trailing behind them and Don's ashes (and how many others I do not wish to think about) will be dumped into the sea to the sound of bagpipes.