Ganma

I used to stay here a lot while I was a child. When Mum and Dad couldn't afford holidays they used to bring Anna and I to stay with Ganma. We called her Ganma because I had been unable to say the letter 'R' leaving the name "Grandma" out of the question. As I was the eldest of the Grandchildren, the name stuck and that's who she became.

I always had this incredible sense of belonging when I was with her. My body knew that she had been invaluable to the creation of me and my mind knew that I had named her, identified her, to a generation. We belonged to one another in a way that Anna could never understand.

When we had gone to stay with Ganma over the summer we had shared her bed and Ganad had slept on the sofa downstairs. We had all giggled as we lay awake listening to him snore. Even now as I lie here I think of Ganma staring at the ceiling and muttering about the artex.

"What was I thinking…?"

Ganma would lie in the middle of the bed, muttering about her momentary lapse in taste that would haunt her until her death, while Anna and I would lie beside her. I would always sleep on her left and Anna on the right, both of us turned away from the old women so as better to warm our freezing feet. She never complained.

While she was still alive her death was the most terrifying thing in the world to me. When I was very young I would fret about where the next batch of chocolate muffins would come from though as I grew up I became increasingly frightened by the prospect she simply wouldn't be there any more and that I would forget.

I haven't forgotten a thing, though my most vivid memories are not of her surprise appearance at my wedding (in a wheelchair accompanied by an entourage of nurses), nor are they of her paying for my first car. I remember Ganma for the smell of her, and the taste of her perfume when I kissed her. I remember her for the plumpness I felt when she hugged me and for the little hums she would hum as she tottered around the corridors of the sheltered housing, delivering shopping to the "old dear" who was actually seven years her junior.

I will remember Ganma's last words.

"You're in very good shape Mrs. Taylor," said the doctor, "all things considered."

He held out the needle for the blood transfusion.

"I'll have young blood in a minute – I expect I'll get even better."