Grief

This week, one of the numbers on the news for people who have died from COVID-19 in the UK was a member of my family. It's weird to me that she's a statistic now.

My dad's stepmother, my gran, tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in January when the retirement home she's lived in for the best part of 2 years finally started contracting the virus.

The home had done a fantastic job to keep the virus out of its walls for as long as it did, and the inhabitants and staff had received their first jabs - but not in time for this. My gran tested positive, but she seemed to be a-symptomatic to which we were all relieved. We know she's tough, but she was 90 and this virus is unrelenting.

However - we discovered last weekend that she had a fall during the night: she had got up to go to the toilet and fallen. This is not the first fall that she's had. She moved into the home after a fall where she broke her hip, not long after recovering from a hip replacement on the other side. My mum recalls her recovery as remarkable - my mum has also had a hip replacement and for her it took months to recover. For my gran, she was up and walking after days.

We knew she was tough. But being tough in the face of the Coronavirus isn't enough. Her kidney was failing, and she was starting to show symptoms of COVID-19. She was on oxygen, and a question of was she strong enough to be put on dialysis.

My parents FaceTimed with her on Tuesday, and I walked in not realising they were on the phone to her. It was horrible. Her face was all bruised on one side, she didn't seem to be with it, and she sounded scared. It was horrible to hear. She was saying thank you for all the wonderful times they'd shared, that she had really enjoyed their company. It sounded like goodbye.

The next evening, we were informed that she'd passed away peacefully with a nurse by her side. We're now discussing funeral logistics, working out how many people will be allowed to go and when it will be.

I want to write this, because my gran isn't just a statistic on the evening news - she was a person. Growing up, I didn't know her or my grandad very well. My sister and I were much closer to my mum's side of the family - in both proximity and relation. We saw these grandparents once a year near Christmas. We had to be on our best behaviour (though my mum's favourite story was the time I ate too many strawberries at their house and I vomited strawberries everywhere... I was 25. Just kidding, I must've been under 5) and although we tried our best to be well behaved, if we visited at the same time as our cousins, we would play hide and seek upstairs.

I used to call her at Christmas every year, thanking her for her gifts and asking how she was and how she was spending the holidays. She wasn't the best conversationalist, but there were several occasions we chatted for 20 minutes or so, unheard of with my dad's side of the family.

Although it was a very formal relationship, it was a relationship nonetheless. When my grandad passed away 10 years ago, I could honestly say I didn't know the man. 10 years on, I feel I got to know my gran. She was very old fashioned, and very deaf. She read the Daily Mail and hated Jeremy Corbyn. She was suspicious of everyone and rude to most people. But she was also very kind to family, loved to giggle, and was a huge fan of Ronan Keating.

I had a panic attack whilst out shopping with her a few years ago. She didn't understand what was happening, but she wasn't rude, or unkind. We rushed back to her house, and she was very supportive. She didn't know what I needed, but she asked questions, and did her best. I wasn't expecting her to react in the way she did, and it made me feel a little bit closer to her.

I got used to meeting my parents at her house, spending time with them and her. When she moved into the retirement home, I went to see her on a number of occasions. She was confused - she did suffer with dementia - but she remembered my name, and roughly who I was. But she always seemed happy. She really liked living there.

I think the restrictions were particularly hard for her. She really enjoyed my parents coming to see her and take her out, even just visiting her in her room. Especially my dad - she told him on a number of occasions that he really reminded her of her late husband. I think she enjoyed his company, just to feel close to him again.

I haven't cried for her passing, though I felt closer to her than my grandad. It had felt inevitable to me, that this was the end. She lived an amazing life, and when we visited her, she loved telling us about my dad when he was younger, but I think she stopped living when my grandad died. She was existing, but not really living. She went on holiday with my parents a few times, and enjoyed spending time with visitors, but when she wasn't with anyone, she shut herself away. Before she moved into the retirement home we were worried about her becoming a recluse. She was in lockdown before it was even a thing - going out just to go to the supermarket, and have her hair done (which would be an essential business in her eyes) weekly.

I'm sad, but also glad, because although we've lost her, I feel confident that she's reunited with her husband.

Which is part of the joy of being a Christian. I'm not a stranger to loss. I lost my maternal grandfather when I was 14 during my GCSE mock exams, and it crushed me. I lost my paternal grandfather when I was 21 and my maternal grandmother when I was 26. So I was lucky enough to grow up with all my grandparents. In the last few years alone, I've lost my godfather, and an elderly couple who became extra grandparents to me and my sister, and great aunts and uncles. Since I became a Christian, I find death a much easier pill to swallow, because it's simply not the end.

All my grandparents believe(d) in God and Jesus in some shape or form. My maternal grandparents and my dad's mum all attend(ed) church, but my dad's dad and his wife didn't. We talked to my gran a few times about faith in recent years, and she did talk about having faith. She didn't want to attend a church, but she believed in the resurrection.

With faith in God, death loses its sting, and we are raised to heaven to be seated with the Holy Trinity. Jesus died for us to allow us the same all access pass to God that He has. It's like being offered a ticket of a lifetime, which for me and my family, was a ticket we didn't want to pass on. So I know, that in whatever iteration heaven comes in (that's a blog for another time) I will be with my sister and brother-in-law, my parents, and all my grandparents, because we all made the choice to follow Jesus.

Rest in peace Granny Marion

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Revelation 21:4