In the last few days of her life my Grandma had been telling the staff in the hospital that she was a Salvationist.  She had been a member of the Salvation Army for most of her life.  Her parents were officers and she’d met my Grandfather at the officer training camp herself.  I’m not sure exactly when she stopped being a practicing member, but I do know that she’d started to get a bit mixed up with Christian Science later in her life (she had, in fact, told the nurses this was a mistake in her last few days).  My mum had asked the local Major to visit her in hospital just before she died.  I don’t think he made it.  So my mum decided, seeing as my Grandma had decided in her last few days that this was her true feelings, she should have a Salvation Army funeral.  Salvation Army funerals, as far as I can tell, are pretty much the same as any ‘standard’ Christian funeral, except the quality of the music and it being a celebration of the deceased’s life (in my opinion any funeral should be).

It was a small funeral (compared to her brother’s – he had died almost exactly a year before, but had been a professional footballer and international table tennis player!), with probably about 20 people at the Salvation Army hall.  After the service the immediate family carried on to the crematorium where we had a very short few words before committing the coffin to the crematorium oven (likely the queue for it, but it’s the symbolism which matters here).  After thanking the Salvation Army major and his wife, we headed back to my Grandma’s flat.

A few of her close family – her sister in law Molly, Molly’s children and their partners – had headed back there for a small get-together.  This was quite interesting.  We got out some of the photo albums we’d found the night before for them to look at, and to try to identify some of the people we didn’t know in the wedding photos and things.

Once they’d gone we started to sort through some of the paperwork my Grandma had built up during her life.  She used to teach accounting and was a secretary for a while and everything was sorted.  Literally everything.  Well over 20 year’s worth of stuff.  As well as all the bank statements there were some fascinating bits of history.  We found the details of her house in Southend-on-Sea from both when they bought it and when they sold it again, along with the receipt for the funeral of my Grandfather.  We also found the obituary of my Grandfather.  The thing which really struck me – I had to wander off into the spare room and have a little cry – was the line “he leaves behind a widow and 15 year old daughter.”  This was my mum.  I never knew my Grandfather, but I hadn’t realised that he’d died when my mum was just 15.

Another thing we found which I found fascinating was an email which Mr T, my mum’s cousin, had sent my Grandma a few years ago with some research he’d done into the family tree.  It wasn’t very complete and he’d asked my Grandma to fill in any information she had.  She’d written a few things, but nothing all that illuminating and a few of the notes were in shorthand which no one could read.  This did set me off on a very interesting path doing some research of my own.  So far I have got back to the 1840s with concrete evidence, but have some information which points to people dating back to the late 1700s.  There’s loads more I need to do but it takes time, and at the moment time’s not something I have huge amounts of.  All being well, work permitting, I should have more time to work on it again, and I’m going to do some while I’m at home this week.

At the time she was in a ward Middlesbrough.  The ward wasn’t the best place for her – there was nothing to do, she was getting bored.  Although she was ill she was still basically mentally fit when prompted.  Yes, she couldn’t always remember things very clearly, but she was a very clever woman and when we visited as a family and talked to her about things she enjoyed (we did the crossword together, for example), she was fine.  On that visit we found some photos from her first wedding in the cupboard and my mum took those with her on the next visit to show her, and she remembered quite a bit about it, although couldn’t remember where abouts in Leeds the photos had been taken.  So my mum kept on at the hospital to get her moved somewhere nicer, somewhere nearer home, to the hospital I was born in, the little town hospital in Guisborough.

A couple of weeks after my visit they found a bed in Guisborough and she was moved there.  The room she moved to, I’m told, was much nicer.  The whole hospital, my mum reported, was much more friendly, much more set up for long term stays.  She had her own television and the staff asked what she’d like to watch to make sure she didn’t miss it.  She even had her hair done by the visiting hairdresser.  This was an important point – when we’d visited her in Middlesbrough she’d commented on how it had got a bit flat because she hadn’t been able to see a hairdresser.  I can imagine, for a woman who’s always had perfect hair, this was a major concern.

My mum visited every weekend from then on and I kept in contact with her.  She told me that the nursing staff had heard her praying.  I think this was the point I realised that she’d decided that was enough.

She died not long after that, peacefully in the day with my mum there.  My mum had been to see her in the morning and she wasn’t really conscious, but she knew my mum was there.  Apparently she could move her feet a little if she wanted to acknowledge something.  My mum left her for a while to go into the town centre – she had a few things to do – and on her return she was greeted by the nurses who told her they were just about to call her.  My Grandma’s breathing had slowed, she was obviously pretty close to dying.

My mum sat with her and put the radio on.  My Grandma had always been very musical and played the piano very well into her old age.  Radio 3 were playing piano music.  The sun was shining brightly outside, and my mum read some sections from the bible.  Her breathing became slower until it finally stopped altogether.

My grandmother died peacefully on the 19th September 2009 in the same hospital I was born, almost exactly 25 years later.