In 2008 my Grandfather, Henry Anderson. Known as Harry, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Upon finding this out I felt two things 1) Denial. The Doctors did not know what they were talking about. 2) If true, I should spend as much time with my grandfather as possible, as he would probably die soon. There was a certain numbness to this. In knowing it was true, I could not comprehend it. It did not seem possible.
The author with her grandfather, Harry Anderson.
When I was younger we had a cat. The cat got old and grey. I knew it would die soon. I talked to my mother about this and I told my mother that I had decided to prepare myself for this. My mother, with all the gentleness of someone who was older and wiser, to a child who has no idea about mortality, told me this was not possible. You can never prepare yourself for death. She was right.
My Grandfather died on the 5th of December 2009. He was 83 years old. He had lived an amazing life and has a loving family. He had been a pilot in the RAF. I tried to make sure my mother was alright after she called me. Then I went to work. I had tried to see my grandfather as much as possible when he was alive. I was shortly going to go up to Scotland for Christmas, and now….
This happened on the Oxford Street Christmas shopping day. The roads were closed off and it was wall to wall people. After work I walked around in a numbness past crying. I kept saying over and over to myself WH Auden style ‘He is dead.’ and yet, it would not sink in. I would never see his face again. I felt like my heart had been ripped out and handed to me. But I could not cry. There was nothing in me.
It was a few days until I managed to make it to Scotland. I felt awful. Ached for my mother, so recently orphaned – her mother, in the last stages of renal failure, had killed herself aged 40. My mother had outlived her own mother – I held her like I had never before. I was so proud at how strong she was.
In my Grandfathers home standing in the last remnants of a life no longer lived, looking for something to remember him by, I had never been so heartbroken. I stared at his shoes, haphazard around the room. His feet would never be in them again.
When I was 5 years old. I was singing and showing off. The picture is above. As I was singing I fell down some stairs. My grandfather rushed to save me but before he could I just got up and carried on singing. Later on, my grandfather always insisted I made him tea when I was in Scotland just so he could use the line ‘I just got a cup of tea from a movie star.’ His faith in me was blinding. He bought me a jewellery box when I was 17. ‘For my diamonds.’
At the funeral it hit me. On the way there we went past me Grandfather’s coffin. My mother’s face fell as she said quietly ‘ Oh god, that’s my dad in there. There’s my dad.’ Upon seeing all my family who I had not seen in years it got worst. My father, sandwiched in-between my mother and I , did not know who to comfort. We were both crying hysterically. He looked like a cartoon character going between us both. I had never cried so much in my life. After the funeral when I looked in the mirror, I looked like Alice Cooper.
There is a lot of myths about deaths. One of them is ‘it gets better’ It does not. My acting career has gone from strength to strength. I live an amazing life full of the most amazing people and yet I miss him every single day. It hits me when I see the biscuits he used to buy in the supermarket. When I am on set, in the quiet moments. I loved him so much and I will never see him again. At this moment I have no tips on bereavement. Time does not heal. It merely blunts the edges.