Personal Post | Missing You One Year On

I dislike posting really personal posts, but I feel like today is an exception. It’s been a pretty hard day for me emotionally and I feel like I need to share with my blog – after all, this is my little corner of the internet, right?

The reason I’m not feeling my usual bubbly self is that today – the 9th of August 2016 – is exactly one year on since my grandad (yes, spelt that way) sadly passed away. Rather than a sombre post of all the sad memories floating around my head, I thought it would be a great opportunity to share with you what a wonderful man my grandad was.

He Stood For No Messing

Although he never ever raised his voice at me, I always knew where I stood with him. He knew what was right and what wasn’t and he stuck by his morals. If he knew you were messing around and dancing around a subject that was important, he’d tell you to jump in and go for it – and he’d do everything he could to help you achieve it.

He was a straight up gentleman, and if you were wrong and he knew it, he’d be sure to let you know about it – but in a way only a grandad could… with love!

He Was Always There

No matter what it was that we wanted or needed, grandad was always there without a moan or a grumble. Whether it was a last minute phone call to get me through to town or even looking after me throughout the summer holidays, both my nana and grandad were always willing to drop everything they were doing to come and help us out.

Even when I got the job I’m currently in and his health had already started to deteriorate, I remember calling him and telling him that I had got the job, and his first words to me were “oh, that’s grand, little darling! Now, how are you doing for getting to work? Is there anything you need?”

Even if it was just something as trivial as picking me up from college when I was sick – he was always there when I called… and I never appreciated that more when he suddenly couldn’t do it anymore.

He Was Creative

I like to think that my grandad helped spur on my creativeness. Every time I went to stay at my nana and grandad’s for the day, I’d always end up making something with him, and it would always be a creative solution to a problem which I thought was impossible at the time.

For example, the memory that sticks out the most when I think back in how creative he actually was is when I “needed” a barn for my farm animal toys (which is a whole other story for the next section).

Rather than having me drag them to town to find a suitable barn for my cows, goats, pigs and sheep to sleep in, he pulled out a piece of cardboard from his stash (he always had some thick cardboard to hand for some reason – probably because he knew we’d ask for him to make something!) and made what I thought was the most perfect cardboard barn – complete with “lockable gate” which I was insistent on having. He always taught me to think of other ways to see a problem, and think of a more creative way to solve them,

He Encouraged My Passion

I don’t know if you’ve noticed… but I love animals – and my grandad never discouraged me from being as passionate as I am about animals and animal welfare. He helped me build my collection of animal toys – even creating a register of all the animals which I had collected, which he brought with us when we went to buy more once a week to expand my collection so that we didn’t buy two of the same animal.

He even understood how much I wanted my own dog – buying me a giant Alsatian dog toy which I named Cassie and even getting a collar and lead for me to put on her to pretend that she was real (I was a kid once!).

It came back to (not literally) bite him one day when he had driven me and my nana to Freeport for a random day out and sat outside one of the shops with Cassie on his knee and her lead in his hand; security came up to him and asked him to take his dog outside as they weren’t allowed in the shopping complex – a swift apology was made when my grandad pointed out that Cassie wasn’t actually real, he just had a very enthusiastic granddaughter trailing along with him!

I love how much effort he went to in order to help me stay as passionate as I am… and it is the one thing that I know for sure he’ll be looking down on my and be proud of – that I’m actually doing something with my passion rather than letting people dictate my opinions which often used to be the case when i was younger.

Reading back on all that I’ve just written, it may not seem like he was any different to your own grandad – but to me, he meant everything. He helped the whole family so much, and although it still is heartbreaking not to have him here with us, I’d rather him be at peace and not in the amount of pain that I know he was in for so long at this time last year.

If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.
—James O’Barr