loss
(Rest: canon 30d)
I penned these words a couple of months ago…
I spoke to my mum last night – it’s been way too long. We had the usual lamenting about the weather and how my father’s back was playing him up, but then out of the blue she said, “I have some bad news for you… T’Anne died’
Now, my aunty Anne was not my aunty, it’s one of those Northern things where anyone living next door or near-by becomes an adopted aunt or uncle, it’s quite endearing really. She was known as T’Anne because I couldn’t say the word aunty when I was very small – it kind of stuck. She was a lovely lady who lived next door to us for the first 16 years of my life. I spent as much time in her house when I was a kid than I did in my own – she was like another mum. She treated me and my kid brother like her own – she used to say to my mum, “I pretend they are mine”. It was with good reason, her boy was killed in a motorcycle accident when he was just 16, she never got over it; how could she…
She was one of the most inspiring, beautiful, generous and lovely people that ever walked this earth. I never heard a bad word come from her mouth about anyone. I regret now not taking my children to see her earlier this year. And so I mourn; my heart is heavy and full of a pain that won’t go away.
Last night I spoke to her again and she told me Uncle Charlie had died last week… seems he didn’t do too well without her. I had planned to take my kids to see him in the summer – not anymore – that will have to wait until some better place. I loved my Uncle Charlie, but I also liked him a hell of a lot, a proud man, ex-army, tough as old boots – a plain speaking Yorkshire man, who liked his half of stout and packet of peanuts. When they moved when I was 16 I used to go visit them every Thursday for a couple of hours, there we’d sit and he’d tell me stories about the army and a life at the steel mill and we’d have a few halves of stout and get through a packet or three of nuts… funny how the simple things can bring back the happiest of memories.
Save some stout for me please Uncle Charlie…
