I love seeing Abi.
It’s not simply because she is a younger version of me, and after years of not seeing someone who looks like me and often thinks like me, it’s amazing to have that. I like her. She is open and friendly, incredibly welcoming. I have not had many close female friends over the years because from an early age Nancy managed to instil in me a fear of getting too close to anyone, and women in particular, in case she disapproved and told them things that put them off me.
I’m overjoyed when I open the door to my shop after hearing a knock and Abi is standing there. Her face is solemn and her eyes are a scarlet red. Something has happened. She doesn’t have to tell me what, I know. Of course I know. There’s only one thing that would make her turn up here out of the blue with that look on her face.
I’m cold. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I am cold. I can’t feel my fingers, nor my toes, nor any of my limbs. It’s not usual to be aware of them, but I’m now conscious that I can’t feel them because I am so cold.
‘Come in,’ I say to her. I have to make a real effort to move my cold, numb body aside to let her in. I pull the shop door shut behind her, the little brass bell tings. I need to focus on making my hands do what I want them to do when I lock the door again.
That’s what it was like for my grandmother: she had to focus, use incredible strength to do the tiniest things because her body did not always obey the usual commands. Her body did not listen when it was meant to carry out the simplest of tasks. That is why she wanted to go. Her body and soon her mind would not be under her control and she wanted it to be over before that happened totally. She wanted one last chance to assert control. This is only a small moment for me, but it is a reminder of what every-day tasks were like for her. Of why she thought it would be too hard to find out how bad it would really get.
Abi stands near the entrance to my shop. She clutches her black leather satchel to her chest like a child’s comfort blanket while her fingers pick at the stitching.
‘Do you want to come through to my workshop?’ I ask. I am trying to delay the inevitable. When she tells me it’ll be true and I do not want it to be true.
‘I had to tell you myself. I couldn’t call or text,’ she says after a head shake at my offer of more comfortable surroundings. ‘It’s Gran.’
I face her properly, ready to accept the news I already know head on.
‘She …’ Abi closes her eyes and steels herself. This has never happened to her before – at least not in a way where she was old enough to understand. The pain, it comes and goes, undercut with moments of denial and disbelief. The disbelief, it blossoms suddenly and winds itself around your heart like a protective shield that allows you to relax and forget for a few precious minutes before it cracks apart and falls away and leaves you with the pain and reality. ‘She … She …’
‘She died?’ I say.
My sister nods then crumples. Without thinking I gather her in my arms. ‘Oh, Abi,’ I say into her hair. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
My grandmother didn’t think this bit through. Why would she when it was her life, her death, that she wanted to control? That was her focus, that was her goal. She wanted her life back under her control when that control, that ultimate feeling of being in charge, had been slowly eroded by the various illnesses that had taken over her body. What she wanted was paramount – this bit, the part afterwards for the people left behind, hadn’t really featured.
She was ready to go, but were the people who loved her, the ones who wanted to get to know her, ready to say goodbye?