"cause Grandpa told me so"

I've realised that a year ago this weekend I was in Stirling for my last ever uni badminton match which happened to just also be St.Paddys Day, so the luck of the Irish was with me when I won my last ever game, but in reality it was thanks to my doubles partner pulling us both across the finishing line in 3 sets! :) It's crazy how quickly this year has gone by!

It's also 6 years today since my Granda McHugh died. He was such a massive influence in my life! He taught me the Lord's Prayer, he taught me poems and rhymes, he took me paddling in the river, we picked strawberries, beans and peas together, he taught me songs, he tried to teach me the tin flute, he let me play hairdresser on his hair so many times, and he rubbed whisky on my gums when I was teething! :) And yet despite all of this, the 2 things I remember most are his hearty dry whistle and his firm handshake/grasp.

When he became very ill it was that grasp that remained strong - holding on to your hand so tight when you went to visit that it felt like it might fall off, but yet it made me feel safe. The last day I seen him alive we were in his hospital room watching the rugby. It was the closing weekend of the 6 Nations and Ireland were playing - I was gripped to the action on the TV that looking back I wish I had have paid more attention to him and held onto his hand one last time. But I was not to know at that point that I was never going to see him again and mum assured me that all he would have wanted was to see me happy. Ireland's last game at the Nations now always has a lasting poignancy for me.

Granda was a man of faith. Of that there is no doubt. Although I had previously lost my other granda, I was a lot younger and maybe it didn't have as much of an effect on me, but this time my grief was comforted in the knowledge that there was absolutely no questioning where my granda had gone and that I will definetely see him again!

Granda read from the Bible every day and to all of us, it was in a 'as good as new' perfect, unmarked condition. That was until Granny was reading it herself a few months after he died. There, as clear as day was the only verse in the entire Bible that granda had marked by underlining it in pencil- Ecclesiastes 12 v 6. To this day this verse stays with me, was it his way of reminding all of us he has gone to his home on high where we will join him one day and not to worry about being without him? I do - he had to have a reason like this to mark the Bible! We buried his body but we didn't bury him! My granda is alive and one day we will go paddling again, pick strawberries again, he will teach me more poems and rhymes, I will get to hold his hand again and hear his dry whistle! :)

So, to my Granda - the above verse....King James style:

"or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it."

# Grandpa told me so - Kenny Chesney #