Whenever I think of my Grandad, the first thing I think of is his laughter. Perhaps it’s best to lay down some ground rules straight away. To me, he was always Grandad. He will never be Sid or even my grandfather. He was simply Grandad, and that is that. His laughter would start with a pop, a strange wheezy hiss like gas rushing out of a champagne bottle before exploding into a rich, bounteous series of bursts of generous hilarity. Whatever else my Grandad might have become, or might have been, I still remember that wonderful noise that was his universal response to the antics of his grandchildren or to the foibles of life.
As I sit writing this, I am aware of a strange effect. The words that normally come to me so easily, so rightly, so cheaply, don’t come so fast now. Not when you’re writing something real, about someone important. The words that frame my moods so easily are fighting me. What follows is as close as I can get to saying what I want to say about Grandad. But then, whoever was ever able to say exactly what they wanted to say?
It was a great shock to me, the time I visited my Grandad and realised that I was taller than him. He was at the home and was starting to fade. The body and the spirit are bound to each other in life, and when one starts to leave the other must follow. He was already thinner than I remembered, particularly in his face, and the light that had twinkled for my entire life had now dulled.
It is a tribute to the Grandad, to the man he was, that its disappearance should hurt so much, should leave such a void, for real pain is caused only by the loss of something precious. I remember at my last visit examining Grandad’s hands. How small they looked! Were they the same hands that used to throw me up and down in the air, gurgling in delight, or hold me upside by the ankle?
Grandad was not a gentleman, possessed of condescending self-assurance and shining with the polish of refined mannerisms. He was something far more precious and rare, a gentle man. He was someone who was always approachable and who would always listen to you, who amiably took the world in his stride.
He also possessed a vast and impressive repertoire of engaging tricks or jokes. One of my favourites was the way he could stick his finger in his cheek to make a popping noise. It never failed to raise a smile and I spent ages trying to do it myself, although my successes were unreliable at best. Grandad could skim stones with the best and always beat me at checkers and I loved him for it and congratulated myself on my good fortune that I had such a clever Grandad.
And when I think of Grandad in years to come, it will not be of the confused, dull figure that made me want to cry as I realised what we had lost. It will not be of the stranger that other people called Sid, giving him an unfamiliar name when he needed none. It will be his laughter, his wheezy, loud and joyful laughter that I will remember.
Sam Ottewill-Soulsby
March 23rd, 2009 | Tags: Grandad | Category: Uncategorized | 
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