Goodbye to a wonderful granddad

Posted by Katy Regan at 17:37 on 22 Feb 2010

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Just got back from a few days up north where I went to my granddad's funeral. He died on the 11th after a fairly short illness. As I have often said on this blog, I feel that at 35 I am very lucky to have had a granddad this long (as well as two remaining grandmothers) let alone, a wonderful one who I was close to and who played a big part in my life. Eighty-two is, by anyone's standards, a ripe old age, but before his illness by granddad was a robust and energetic man and was able to play a significant part in Fergus's life too as a great-granddad, walking on the bleak, grassy shore that we live near, throwing stones into the sea, watching the trains go by at the level-crossing, all the idly pleasurable pursuits that only granddads and great-granddads really do well.

I have never lost anyone close to me, or been to a funeral of a close family member but it really changed the way I see death and dying in a positive way. What I was expecting to be a harrowing, depressing experience: dusty, gloomy church, impersonal eulogy by some doddery vicar, hymns sung in weak, shaky voices and  just the sound of snivelling, turned out to be nothing of the sort.

My nanna chose Pie Jesu to follow the coffin and walk into the church to. Whilst it was undoubtedly a tear-jerker that had us all in tears before we'd even begun, with the early Spring sunshine drenching the congregation in an ethereal glow, it was a bit like walking into heaven.

Of course, there is no such thing as a good funeral - we were saying a final goodbye to someone we loved after all - but it was uplifting and certainly a celebration of a life. The vicar gave a beautiful tribute: personal, at times humorous and true.  My mum - his daughter - read out a beautiful Psalm and I read a eulogy on behalf of all the grand-children and great-grandchildren and although it was hard, way harder than I thought it was going to be, I am so glad I did it..

People surprise you. They say the wisest, most comforting things. One family member wrote in her card: He achieved the perfect life: long, happy, full of love. It struck me that really this is the ultimate ambition for us all.

As well as a good life, you could say that my granddad had a good death: relatively painless and surrounded by people who love him.

One thing Egg keeps saying about his trip to Haiti, is that people didn't have this at all.. Nobody had time to say goodbye, people were snatched. It's made me see that whilst we all have to go someday, we all have to die of something, there is death that we can make sense of and that that should never have happened at ll. Although I will miss him terribly at least my granddad's was the former.

RIP grandad xxxx

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