It’s been a week now since my nana left the world in which we live. Since then we’ve shed many tears, reminisced about the wonderful times we’ve shared with our beautiful lady, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried some more and we came together to share in a memorable service to celebrate the fabulous person my nana was!

Now it’s the aftermath….
The time when everyone goes back to their respective places of dwelling, work resumes again and the times spent together are fewer than they’ve been. It’s during this time, now the formalities are over, that the real grieving process begins. Over the coming months we’ll feel as though we are climbing a sea of mountains with many peaks and troughs! Today we feel worse than yesterday, but tomorrow we may feel better, until the next day rolls over when we feel worse again. And it may just take a song or a piece of material to remind us of the hole that nana has left, but together and with the ever lasting memories of nana we will get each other and more importantly grandad through this difficult time!

It still feels so wrong that we’ll never be able to hold nana’s hand again, help her out of her chair or brush her hair to make her feel relaxed, but to save our own health and sanity, we have to make peace with the fact that nana isn’t suffering anymore and that she will always live on with us everywhere we go! Nana would want us to pick ourselves up and keep soldiering on and in her memory we must do that! If there is anything I’ve learnt from the dearest grandmother I know, it’s not to feel sorry for yourself. My whole life I’ve seen nana in pain as she had scoliosis from a young age and was told she would be in a wheelchair by the time she was 50. At 75 she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and was still walking and never once in the 33 years I was blessed to have her, did she ever complain or say “why me !”…even when her daughter and grandson passed away!

It’s quite ironic that although nana isn’t physically here anymore, she will be the one to help us move forward. Every time we weep, every time we feel sad or mad about the situation all we have to do is think of how nana coped with all the terrible things thrown her way. Time after time she moved forward and with such grace and dignity…if nana could then so can we!

To my beautiful family: we can do this! It isn’t going to be easy but we have been given a gift from nana and that is the gift of strength! Nana taught us how to love, how to nurture, how to laugh, how to be creative and most importantly how to be strong. It’s with this strength that we will feel happy and content again. It may not be today or tomorrow but the day will come when our tears are less and the smiles are greater. It’s a hard pill to swallow the thought of picking yourself and finding ‘normality’ again. Moving forward is not about forgetting nana, it’s about enjoying life for nana as she is unable to anymore…..