Life is the name of the game...

[apolla]

It is my opinion that everyone has a death that has profoundly affected them. A death which destroyed them at the time, and a death for which the passage of time soothes the pain but does not erase it. A death that changed everything after it. A death that forever put an entire section of a life firmly in the realms of the past.

If a person does not have something like this then they are either very young indeed, or very lucky indeed. Some people are profoundly unlucky, or perhaps of a 'certain' age and have more than one.

You might suppose that for me, that death might be the American in the bath, or the Scouser shot dead, the Irishman whose kidneys, liver, heart and lungs all gave out. You might suppose it to be the musician with lung cancer or the entertainer with an incurable disease. You might even suppose it was the crooner who died on Christmas Day. You might think it any number of people whose names and faces are familiar to us all, who will be a certain kind of immortal forever.

You would be wrong, for the death that destroyed me so completely was not of a handsome young stranger with the voice of an angel and the soul of a demon, nor of the lonely blonde with a dependency on sleeping pills.

Unfortunately for me, there are no books written about this person. Perhaps if there were, I would know her better. As it is, her funeral did not draw thousands. Her grave remains mercifully untouched by graffiti, although is yet, four years after her death, to have her name put on it. Her name is not familiar to people in Karachi and she doesn't appear on any 100 Greatest lists published by anyone.

But for me, her death destroyed me more utterly, more completely, than any zonked out film star or smacked up rock star. You don't know her name, but how I have loved her.

 

So finally, four years after her death and thus eight and half years since we took stewardship, my mother has finally allowed me to bring down a plastic box from the attic, bearing the photographic collection of my dearest, most beloved grandmother. No, you don't know her name, but to me, Anne Driscoll was an entire world.

And yet I know almost nothing about her. I know she liked Battenburg cakes, or giving them to me, at any rate. I know she was married to William Driscoll from 1950 to 1978, when he died. I even now know something about him being -briefly- married to someone else before. I know she grew up in Northern Ireland with her grandmother, separate from her siblings, who grew up in London with their mother and father. Things like that were done much more then, when families were bigger and often poorer and other members of the family could ease the burden.

I know what she looked like at various times of her life. Her image is as burned into my soul as Philip or Jim or Lennon or Harrison or any of them.

And yet somehow, when I sifted through the many photographs, I was still taken aback by how very beautiful Mary Anne Driscoll was. Not that she would countenance being called Mary or Mary Anne of course. It was Anne. Her family called her Nan, as a nickname, not as a title, which famously caused upset at the residential home when a nephew of hers came to visit.

I had never, not when she was alive and well, really thought about her as a young woman, or as a human being separate from simply being my grandmother. Children don't, not really. I asked questions about Ireland, fascinated even back then, but did not push for tough questions. What were your hopes and dreams, Granny? Were you happy there, Granny? Did you hate having to come to London, Granny? What was it like rejoining a family you hardly knew, Granny? Did you miss Limavady, Granny? Did you love someone, Granny? What was your life like during the war, Granny? Were you scared? What did you do? Who was your great love, Granny, was it Granddad? How did you feel when he died, Granny? What was my mummy like when she was little, Granny? Did you love her lots, Granny? What did you love and hate, Granny? Did you really dislike my daddy, Granny? What did you think when they said they were going to adopt children, Granny? What did you think of me, Granny? Did you love me anyway, Granny? Were you scared of getting old, Granny?

By the time it occurred to me to ask any of these questions and demand answers, she no longer knew who I was. By the time I reached a maturity to ask them sensitively, she was dead.

I tried to write a movie once. It started at a funeral, and featured a heartbroken girl. Then it swung back all the way to the day a four year old girl got given to her granny to look after. And then nothing, for I did not know what to write. I could've just made it up, but that wasn't the point. I knew my Granny so well, but I didn't know Anne Hayward or her later Driscoll incarnation at all.

But wasn't she beautiful!

 She's the one in the white hat. I don't know who the other girl is. Might be one of my great aunts. Might not be. I know it's Brighton in 1937 cos that's what it says on the back. Wonder what flavour ice cream they had?

That girl with her was a friend in the ATS during the war. I think her name was Ruby and they stayed in touch to the end. I wonder where they were going on those bikes.

 That's my granddad with her. I wonder where they were going, or when it was. She looks like a movie star, like Joan Crawford or Norma Shearer or someone for whom you would stop in the street to gawk at.

That's her with my mother, a very long time ago. I wonder if that was a happy day, where it was and if they were having fun. I wonder if it's my grandad taking the picture. I wonder if they managed to like each other and show each other affection that day, as they did not on so many other days.

I wonder.

Comments

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this, Clare. I can tell you loved your Granny very much *hugs*

[angiej.livejournal.com]

This was a heartfelt and touching post, Clare. Your grandmother was indeed a ravishing and lovely lady. I love her name, too... it sounds like a character in one of my books. I think I would have loved her, too. :)