Granny Piano - an epitaph on a tyrant

"'I am not an angel," she asserted, "and I'll not be one until I die. I am myself."

'Jane Eyre', Charles Dickens

These words could easily epitomise my Granny Piano, though I suspect she would vehemently deny she was anything but the paradigm of goodness if any of us were present. After all, she was terribly stubborn - a trait which has filtered down from child to grandchild and I suspect that all of us possess it to some degree now.

It has been a few days since we learnt of Granny Piano's passing and I have been resisting the temptation to plagiarise W.H. Auden and gently name this 'Epitaph on a Tyrant."

That would be cruel and otherwise inappropriate. And typical of me, if I'm honest. (I can see her looking at me horrified, but I would just wink from the bottom of the stairs and she would not be able to resist a small smile.) That was our relationship.

It's a funny thing being an adult grandchild. You hold onto the memories past. Because there is a moment when you are growing up, in my case the later teens, when the penny drops and lo behold you realise that your grandparents and your parents and all adults in fact are people all on their own and actually possess (dare I say it) personalities. You blink in horror and rub at your eyes to double check. They have pasts and presents and futures. And not necessarily ones you want to know about.
Your parents and grandparents actually exist...beyond their direct relevance and usefulness to you.

With some relations that's a marvellous thing - having an adult relationship with your mum when you are so hoping she will buy you those high heels you've been dying to get or give you permission to get into the nightclub that all your friends are allowed to go to... (Your ulterior motives don't always change after this momentous discovery). Or what about that mysterious uncle who never said very much to you growing up but gave you terribly nice presents. All of a sudden, you're propped up on a bar drinking a glass of wine and talking about the last play he'd seen at the theatre.

Sometimes it's ghastly, like when your dad tells an inappropriate joke and one part of you is like I can't believe we're talking about the "s word"like grownups and the other part is like ewww, don't ever say that to me again!

But for me, thinking about Granny Piano and in spite having had that stark discovery of "she has a past and a present too", I can't see her in any other way other than when I was six years old and a very young child. And those are some of the best and most vivid memories I have.

Her kitchen in Boston Spa where our art took focal point on her walls. Those wonky calendars we had made out of paper plates and string when we were very little. There were always pictures everywhere of her family - and her favourite stories were always when her grandchildren or her boys had been extremely naughty. These were our favourite stories too. She would retell these to us whilst we were tucked up in her waterbed, toasty warm from the electric blanket and hugging Marcipaloni. (Marcipaloni was this old wrinkly teddybear that had a very exotic history - how much of it invented, I'll now never know). Maripaloni's bed of tissues was always right next to us under the bedside light. I remember jam jars of rose petals and running naked under the hose pipe in her garden. Jam jars of water and squiggles of paint covering both paper and tablecloth. The raspberries and sweets and cream by the bucketload that were always just there in her fridge as if magically she knew we were dropping by. Swinging on the garden seat and how soft and squidgy she was to cuddle - not only her cashmere, but the powder on her cheeks and the handcream she swore by. She would stroke the inside of your wrist very gently. I remember watching her play the piano when there was still room for both of us to squeeze on the velvet stool. The hours of playing Happy Families - (the irony I could only appreciate later) - and Wimbledon and poor Uncle John.

Those are the things I remember. If I'm honest, that's how I want to remember her - and having been so lucky to have had her in my life for thirty years, I have the luxury to choose where she sits in my memories and where she sits in my heart. So I think I'll be six.

I might also cheat and add a few snippets from when I was older - it would be unforgivable not to laugh over her startling black eyebrows or her bizarre fashion for wearing sunglasses indoors.

Sometimes I wish I could have asked all the questions I wanted to ask and tell her all the things I had to say, but life doesn't work that way. We never manage to quite do our goodbyes (saying it is so hard after all) and even if I had asked all the questions I wanted to ask and told her all the things I had to say, I probably wouldn't understand any more than now. She was a mystery in many ways. The stubbornest of us all.

As an adult, I can't like all of the things I know about her now, but she was a truly special grandmother. I loved her with a huge piece of my heart. She left me enraptured and charmed, pampered and loved. And I feel very lucky for having had her.

I hope she's at peace now. And I will feel her absence sorely.