You Never Forget Your First Time

My Grandpa died last month, just like the typical way all grandparents do eventually, taking secrets and stories along with them. It never actually hit me I don’t think. Not the way it did everyone else. Or maybe it did and I just didn’t want to show it whilst everyone else was sobbing. In a way—that I wouldn’t admit to anyone—it was terrifying. I try to act like I’ve seen it all before and that I’m more grown up than I am. I’m totally adamant to other people that I’m okay, I’m fine, it doesn’t bother me. I’m not really sure why but honestly I never saw it as a bad thing anyways. Not until every time I was about to cry I had to force it back down my throat with a reminder that I had to be strong because my family needed me. I started to realise that it didn’t feel okay and it actually hurt to make myself “un-sad.”

This made the weeks leading up to his funeral progressively harder. My mam stopped eating and sleeping. So did I. (I remember having nothing within the last 30+ hours but a handful of salted peanuts.) I would stay up listening to her cry till I got up to make her a cup of tea at anywhere between 3 AM - 6 AM. “It’s okay to act fifteen you know, no one expects you to be the grown up.” She reminded me one night whilst I sat on the edge of the sofa with her and a box of tissues between us. Yeah I know, I thought. It still didn’t stop me. I just handed her another tissue and took her mug away.

The funeral was yesterday. I woke up at 8 AM on my back thinking, “I can’t even be arsed.” We were asked to wear green because his favourite football team was the Celtics.

It’s easy to forget but he was very Scottish. I don’t have many memories of him - most of them are hazy. Like when you wake up and your dream’s fading and you have to concentrate really hard to gather the details. But my earliest ones are mostly just his granddad socks and his voice. A cacophonous shout that sounded like it was booming from atop a mountain, shaking my little body. It was all gravelly, like sandpaper. Vowels and consonants scraped out between yellow-stained teeth and tongue.

Over time he lost his accent. He lost a lot of other things too. His weight being one of them. It was almost scary. I remember hugging him and just feel his ribs dig into my cheeks - I could’ve counted them. He never ate. On the rare occasion he’d come visit during work my mam would make sure he would have something. He’d have to wake up at 4 AM to get back to work, so my dad would stay up all night so he could make him breakfast before he left.

They didn’t look after him in Nottingham.

We waited outside the Church, my arm firmly entwined with mam’s and my sisters. It was absolutely arctic. Me and dad thought it’d be a good idea to leave our coats in the car. My hands were blue. We watched my brother waddle down the path towards us. “Why does it look he’s shat himself?” Me and Jamie inquired in perfect synchronization that only siblings could achieve.

It was his uniform. His army uniform which looked like scratchy cardboard. Felt like it too. I immediately let go after hugging him. “Never hug me in that uniform again, that was horrible.” He had his special hat on too, the sort of flat, black hat with a red band around it and golden badge attached in the middle. It was weird to me, always is seeing him in any army uniform. It reminds me that A) he’s a soldier and B) he’s not just a boy anymore. That’s probably weird for a little sister to say. But I never think of him as a grown man. I think of the spotty teen I’d spent all of my childhood playing Xbox with.

He was as pale as everyone else, looking close to passing out. He hadn’t slept at all. Finally, the funeral cars arrived. Crowds of people who I’d learned to despise came out from within. I held on tighter to mam and Jamie. Silently, I watched them hug and cry on each other as the coffin was carried out. The closer they came the more the dread burnt my stomach.

I heard mam sob next to me so I wrapped my arm around her waist and pulled her closer to a hug. “I know, I know it’s horrible but you need this.” I reminded her, sounding so much calmer than I actually felt. In reality, I was fighting my instinct to run away; hide behind a grave or something.

The coffin passed us into the chapel, a bagpiper leading in front, a veteran carrying the flag, following. And then Kieron marching behind, crying and trying not to get slapped in the face by the flagpole.

I didn’t look at anyone as they passed me, I tried to just not be there.

That was my tactic through the whole thing. Pretend it wasn’t my dead grandpa’s cold body in the coffin in front of me. Focus on supplying tissues to mam, Kieron and Jamie and to scold dad whenever he started being insensitive.

The wake was the hardest part.

I thought I’d finally let go the moment I dropped my roses onto his coffin and a handful of dirt—which mostly ended up on my pants instead.

It was full of people I didn’t like. One way to torture me is to put me in a room full of people I hate and make me pretend to like them. It drains me and I find it impossible. People describe me as brutally honest and I am. I find it better than being two-faced. It also means I’m trustworthy, because I never lie about what I think. So it was disorienting.

Now when I’m placed in an uncomfortable social situation, I immediately seek out those who make me feel safe. I couldn’t go to my actual family because they were too busy with the people I didn’t like. Now every time I’m around those from Nottingham I go to either uncle David or grandpa.

Uncle David is schizophrenic and on extremely strong meds. He’s in a constant state of being barely there. He never used to be.

And Grandpa’s dead. Not much comfort in that.

I could feel myself always trying to find him in the room. It was like a nightmare. I could feel my heart start to race and breath become short. I felt watched and judged and unsafe. I immediately went into the—thankfully—empty toilets and cried. I cried hard. It was hard to actually stay standing. (I hate talking about when I cry. Even if it’s like to myself. If it’s to another person I feel like they’re thinking “you just want attention or sympathy.”) He was actually dead. I would never hear his sandpaper voice again. I’d never smell that nauseating but oddly comforting mixture of Old Spice, tobacco and sweat.

Eventually I made it out, eyes stinging and probably puffy. Nobody noticed I had left or had been crying. I’m not sure whether I found that relieving or really, really sad. Both, I think.

So it was hard. More so because of the people who had been there. But I got through it and was strong for my family. I’m proud of myself for it.