Endings and Beginnings

I got a text from my mum last night at 4am saying Grandma had died. She'd taken a turn for the worst on Wednesday, and had done sudden declines but then plateaued out several times between then and last night.

It's kind of a relief in a way, she'd been such a shell, such a shadow of her Self, for so many years, that now she is free of her body at last.

I remember a dream I had some years ago now, I woke up howling in anguish, because in my dream I'd lost my mum. I woke up sobbing my heart out wanting my mum, the pain of losing her in my dream is still as real now as it was then. I think then I understood a little of what my mother was going through, watching her mother slowly disappearing to senility, wasting away, living less and less.

My dad says it's like being cut loose. Suddenly you're the top of the family tree, there's no-one there any more to fall back on even if they were a husk of a person.

He says it's times like this that it's good to see the littlies playing, the new generation of the family starting to grow; there's a new sense of endings and beginnings.

Four Generations


The photograph is Ben waiting, waiting for a train to come past in the evening light. I guess we're all waiting for something.