Sweet Peas

This afternoon, almost as I hit "publish post" I got a phone call which meant that instead of my cosy evening that I had planned of sitting back, maybe with a drink, some leftover lamb korma and some mindless television or computer games, I got in my car and drove into the sunset. Directly into it actually, its orange glow half blinding me under the very heavy rain clouds that were dumping their bounty on my car at the time. As I navigated the Friday afternoon gridlock, and then later the trucks and the incredibly irritating leftlanephobics I had the CD player blaring and I sang along loudly to distract me from thinking and allow me to concentrate on the driving which was a bit more involved than usual.

It wasn't until I actually pulled into the carpark that I actually thought about why I was there. I was going to see my last remaining grandparent to say goodbye. As I walked through the now dark and relatively deserted carpark I was feeling relatively calm and resolute. Have done this walk a few times now - 3 other grandparents, and with Grandad himself a few times. Walking in it was deja vu. There is something about a person who is on that fragile edge between life and beyond that is unmistakable. The way they breathe, the way they sound, the way their spirit is somehow diminished. I felt all that as I walked in. And it hit me - saying goodbye for the last time means no more hellos.

I never thought I was as close to Grandad as to my Nanas. But as I was sitting there alone clasping his cold and swollen hands, my chin propped on the bedrails watching his sightless gasping face I started remembering.

A few posts ago I mentioned that I'm not touchy feely - that no one hugs me. Grandad always did. Always hugged me, always stroked my hair (I love love love having my hair stroked) as he called me little pet or little darling. No one was or is prouder of me than Grandad.

Grandad who built a put put golf course in his prized back lawn for us, and welded the putters so we could play.

Grandad who would take us to the park to collect bucketloads of macadamias and then teach us to smash them on the cracks in the concrete with a hammer to get the milky white nuts.

Grandad who would cut up rockmelon for us to have with icecream.

Grandad who made us breakfast when we stayed with him and Nana - hot English breakfasts, tins of spaghetti boiled on the stove.

Grandad who planted the avocado tree that was my second home.

Grandad who looked after Ochre and Allegro, the fattest, best cared for ginger cats (the size of Shetland ponies) that ever were.

Grandad who taught me how to use a yabby pump and catch blood worms.

Grandad who taught me how to make a kite and took me to the park so that I could fly it.

Grandad's walk around the aeroport - just that little bit further - while I collected flowers the whole way and wove them through my hair and he called me a woodelf.

Grandad who was the avid and gifted gardner, who would take us down the back to pick beans or chokoes or peas or gourmet tomatoes and taught us that nothing tastes better than fresh off the vine.

Grandad who planted the passionfruit over the shed, who turned his one cymbidium orchid into 6 floribundas, who planted shasta daisies that massed in his garden beds and proud arum lilies and hydrangeas.

Grandad who every year would show me how to take the smooth, hard magic little brown beans and sew them at the base of the trellis so that come spring time there would be a mass of sweetpeas that perfumed my very soul.

As I sat next to Grandad I could smell those sweetpas: their delicate fragrance; their fragile blossoms; their vivid but never ostentatious colours; feel their raspy stems and the feel of the smooth dark seeds between my fingers. Then the tears rolled down my cheeks. I couldn't stop them, sitting in the ugly hospital room, smelling sweet peas and hearing the oxygen hiss the silent tears came and came and came.

I listened as the breath rattled in his chest and thought of how no one again will stroke my hair and call me darling. I flashed through every memory I have of him shaping my childhood. And as I was watching with big salty tears falling I realised something else - I always thought I had my Dad's chin, but I don't. The Elfling and I have Grandad's chin. I have never noticed before. And I don't know why but that made me feel better - that I get to keep something tangible of him. A love of machines, the smell of welding, gardens, a chin and sweet peas.

It's just past midnight and Dad has called. Goodnight Grandad.