in memory

Shortly after I blipped yesterday my Dad called to tell me that my Grandma died early Saturday morning. She was 90, and had suffered from Alzheimer's for a few years. I am very sad, but at the same time grateful- she was not always lucid, and did not always know her family, but my Dad said she seemed content in the home where she lived. She was not in pain, and was in reasonably good physical health. She died quickly and peacefully, and that's all I could hope for.

I hadn't seen her since coming to China, and last spoke to her last year. I guess I knew when we came to Beijing that I wouldn't see her again. My Dad gave me these rings when she moved into the care home a couple of years ago.

I will always remember her in her home in Oldham, with the old cotton mills you could see from the house, and her amazing cooking- the best parkin and steak and kidney puddings- and the pontefract cakes she bought me when I was little, and her records, and her stories, and so much more.

Bye, Grandma.