Back in 1984 I was approaching my 13th birthday standing in the church and had been coping fairly well. It was the first time I'd encountered death but it had not been a shock. We'd had well over a year to get used to the fact my grandfather was going to die- not that it made it any easier. For that time we all had to watch this strong man wither away to under 6 stone losing his mind as well as his body as the brain tumour took over. In the end the doctor had to give him an injection and then to his amazement he came back the following day to find my grandfather still going strong. "I wouldn't let an animal suffer like that", he had said. The old boy didn't care. He'd come into the world kicking and screaming like the rest of us but unlike most if he was to go out then he was going the same way. The doctor gave him another shot. That was the end- the following day after a night of more fighting.
We all accepted it and in a little way we were relieved. His suffering was over. My gran and uncle who nursed him were extremely tired- shattered. No one really cried. All the tears had been shed before that were needed to be shed.
So there I was at the funeral. The first time anyone I knew had passed away and I've been very lucky in that regard as I have had very few since- just that shattered gran and uncle. It was all going OK when suddenly I focused on the coffin while some stranger my grandfather never knew bleated on about what a great man he had been citing anecdotes he'd only heard an hour before like he was some old drinking buddy. In that moment I just burst into tears. I was the only one. My mum took my hand and I could see it upset her but I felt nothing. This was a foreign thing for my mum to do. It was more a reaction than a heartfelt attempt to reach out.
I felt ashamed. I was the only one crying. Not just crying but uncontrollably breaking down. At that age I'd cried many times and each time I was ashamed because I came from a strong family who showed little emotion. Born among men who didn't cry. But I couldn't stop and so I cried and cried. I can't remember when I stopped but to this day it was the last time I shed a tear. I sometimes wonder if this fact has ing some way fuelled an anxiety within. Without that release there must me a turmoil inside and when I feel my lip quiver I have to hold back.
It's sewn into my DNA though or nurtured at least. As I said I come from a family of strong people on the male side. Strong might be the wrong word. For most letting their emotions go is a stronger act than repressing them. But that is the way it is. Hard habit to break. It was ironic that the last time I cried was over the death of a person who put up such an incredible fight without crying to hold onto the very last threads of his life. Such determination. Really I have little to cry about.
Since I have learned what went before and I realise how little I really have to cry about. I'd like to briefly summarise the life of my grandfather, named Robert.
Robert was the son of Edward and Ann. Edward came from a long line of Scots but was actually born in Liverpool when his family were resident down there for two decades. When Edward was born in 1889 he was the 4th child but only the second surviving one. Before his birth a sister had died after several months of life and a brother had died on his first birthday. Along with his elder sister Mary he would occupy the house near the Mersey with a younger brother Hugh born 4 years later.
Edward had the hardest of early days. Before he was 5 his mother died in her early thirties of heart disease and was buried in an unmarked public grace beside a neighbour and some local children. This left his father, who worked on the steam ships on the Mersey, alone with 3 young children in Liverpool. All his family some years before had packed up and returned to Scotland. There was no way he could cope so he did the same and headed with the children back to Glasgow where Edward and his siblings would live with their grandparents.
It would have been a horrible time. The loss of their mother and then uprooted from their home to a place that was foreign to them. Had fate not been unkind enough? No was the answer. Two years later at the new family home Edward's grandfather died and just 4 months after that his father also died, aged 38. So at 8 years old he found himself an orphan with his 3 year old little brother and 14 year old sister living with his grandmother. Various aunts and uncles did help out.
As the turn of the century approached the last blow was struck. By then his little brother Hugh died aged 5 years old. From a family of 7 in Liverpool just Edward and Mary remained. He was only 10 years old.
In 1917 Edward married a local girl from an Irish family named Anne. By this time Edward's grandmother had died and most of his aunts and uncles too. He was a coppersmith by trade still living in Glasgow. Why he was not at war is unknown but it could have been on health grounds. His wife already had a child, named Annie, who was born illegitimately. The child's father was reportedly a lord where her mother worked as housekeeper and the birth took place far away in Dundee to avoid scandal.
9 months into the marriage in March 1918 Edward and Annie had their own child, a boy they named Robert. This should have been the start of the new life. The war was coming to an end and the family were starting out. By the end of the year though Edward was dead, aged 29 years old. He died of TB in a poor house and was said to have been "buried by friends". For all the world little Robert would never know his father or any of his father's family. His father died when he was just 9 months old and all of his family were dead with the exception of his father's older sister Mary.
Robert's life was not an easy one. His mother remarried within two years of his father's death. His step father was cruel and preferred the 7 children he brought into the world with Robert's mother. As quickly as he could Robert got out. He joined the army to get away.
As war broke out in 1939 Robert married a woman named Margaret. The marriage lasted barely 2 years as Margaret died aged 23 years old. With this event Robert went AWOL to be with his dying wife and afterwards was threatened with imprisonment. In the end though he was given the opportunity to join the Merchant Navy in the continuing war effort which he did.
Shortly after he married Catherine to whom he had 4 children in total. During the war though 3 of the ships he was on were torpedoed. It is miraculous that he survived as he worked in the engine room. The last sinking left him bobbing in the Irish Sea which led to a couple of months in hospital with pneumonia before being discharged. After leaving hospital things were not much better. He was confined to bed in a small house with his wife and two children, two more came later. But this was not his own house but that of his mother-in-law. And sisters lived there with husbands and children in the confined space. Unable to work they had to get by on his wife's wage and handouts.
All this I learned later about my ancestors. But really I have always known. There is something strong inside me like them which makes this all the more frustrating to deal with. From me sitting at a computer afraid to go out and looking for comfort to my grandfather with all the tribulations in his life fighting to the bitter end.
Twenty four years without shedding a tear doesn't make me as strong as them. I am nowhere even close. I sometimes wonder if this mental detachment is something brought on by the age we live in. Maybe that's why none before I know have had to contend with this. All I do know is that I try as hard as I can and I will continue to fight. Someday I hope to get the better of this thing- then maybe I will cry again.
