I never realised how important family could be until I lost my grandmother. She had always been a pillar of strength in my life, someone I could literally tell anything too.
My mother, who felt the need every other holiday to be parted from her children, would ship my older sister and I off to my grandmother. As my grandfather had died when I was a baby and my grandmother only remarried when I was in high school, I think she craved the company as much as we craved her cooking. It was a good deal.
She lived in a large apartment above a shoe store in the town I'd been born in - Fort Beaufort - in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. One of those towns where you could walk down the street - seven-years-old and not be afraid some stranger would want to harm you.
Everyone knew everyone by name and seeing a horse go down the road was an every day occurance. The public swimming pool was also within walking distance - as was everything else - and full to the brim with frogs. Which was ok, if you didn't mind frogs. You still bought a hand full of sweets for a penny and in the summer, ice cold lemonade would be made by the pitcher full and left out with a funny little lace cover to keep the flies out.
My grandmother never expected anything from me, but honesty and kindness. She taught me the importance of following your dreams and never givinig up. She also taught me that it was more important to give love, than to expect it in return. I wanted to be just like her.
In a way, I guess I did adopt a little of her style. I also became a journalist because she was one of the few people to ever encourage me. She gave me a typewriter when I was only about five-years-old and the rest, as they say, is history.
I only found out years later that she had been a freelance reporter for the King William's Town Mercury - the very same newspaper I got my first job at.
Eventually age and the countless problems that accompany this part of ones life caught up with my grandmother. The once beautiful, intelligent and bright woman seemed to shrink before my eyes.
As I grew older and moved away from home, I also spent less and less time with her until Mark and I left South Africa in 2000 and I never saw her again. The one thing I do value is that she met him before she died. She liked him. That meant a lot to me. When I received the call telling me she had died I was devastated. I was too far away to go to her funeral and that hurt more than anything because I never got to say goodbye - if you know what I mean...
A part of who I was had died along with her. There were so many things I still wanted to tell her. So many things I wanted to give her, experiences we had left together that we never shared.
It's important to take the opportunity and appreciate your family while they are still with you. It's important to never take them for granted. It's important to tell them that you love them. I did - every chance I got.
I will never forget the feel of her arms around me, her warm cheek next to mine and that sparkle in her eye... because in me she saw herself. And I never want to disappoint her.
I only wish I had told her more often....
