I have a green bag that’s been sitting in my ‘hairdressing cupboard’.
It’s been there with all the bits and bobs in there for well over a year now.
Today, I was going to sort through it and throw away anything I no longer needed or used.
I wasn’t prepared for the scent that greeted me as I opened the bag and gazed upon all these hair curlers.
Both of the beautiful ladies whose hair I used to set have not long since died.
One of them was my grandmother.
When the scent hit my nose, my memories were activated.
Every week I used to go round and set her hair (once she wasn’t strong enough to get out to the hairdressers in town).
I enjoyed our Wednesday mornings.
What precious time that was.
I wasn’t hugely close with my Gran previously. Not in the way I knew her in the last two years leading up to her death.
That two years of her decline was a time of transition in many ways. She became vulnerable and thankfully she let me in. I got to know the women she truly was deep down. We had many similarities which neither of us had realised before and we shared comfort and joy in discovering them.
I understood many of her ways in the end. I understood and she knew I did.
I saw her nearly every day for those two years.
My work life nearly grounded to a halt and she and my grandfather often has me and my mother running round in circles; but when my granny died, there came a sense of pride and satisfaction that I squeezed so much in to those last two years.
It is often what happens in life. You don’t always get a chance to be close to those you love. And sometimes it’s them stopping it. For what ever reasons it is, sometimes it’s hard to unlock the reasons and sometimes it better to just let it be.
For my gran, she became poorly. Very poorly. And we nursed and cared for her as much as we possibly could till the very end.
And at the end, after a 5 day vigil beside her bedside she made her final transition and began her journey back toward the Divine.
And she’s been with me ever since.
I am sure she is all around all of us, my family.
Her death was one of the most powerful and poignant experiences of my life.
It was hard and harrowing , it was long, drawn out and full of sorrow. It was also beautiful, sacred and a time of love. A time where we all gathered together sharing stories, laughter, tears and smiles round her bedside. We came together and filled her home and her final days with her daughters, her grandchildren and her great grandchildren.
Every day we turned up, working in shifts and making sure she was never alone.
We touched her and stroked her and spoke to her.
We filled her room with pink flowers and I placed a special sphere of Rose Quartz by the window. The room was decluttered and clean and so the sacred and beautiful last journey began.
I am so grateful that first moment she took to her bed and I got to her side she told me “you know I love you don’t you?”
Telling anyone she loved them wasn’t words that came easy to my Gran. These were also the last things she ever said to me.
After her death, which words I cannot find to write here in this space , I was privileged to be shown and taught how to clean my beautiful granny’s body and lay her out. Me and my mother did it together. A very special time for my mother and me. To spend the time lovingly cleaning and preparing her body in such a way will stay with me for the rest of my days. We brushed her hair and kissed her cheeks. We stroked her hands and tucked her in. And she really did look so peaceful.
Gone was the red angry pain that was etched onto her face over the last year. All that fell away and peace really did come.
I don’t think I’ll be sorting out the bag after all.
I feel like in this bag is the captured time spent setting her hair in her kitchen.
I’ve tied a knot to keep it all there instead 💗🙏🏻✨
