Goodbye Granddad

My maternal grandfather died last week. He lived a fabulously long 90 years, 88 and half of which were healthy happy ones, only the last 18months were poor, he had to cope with the indignity and awfulness of Alzheimers, which was nothing short of a living death in the latter few months of his life. Prior to his funeral my mum said to me that, way back in November, when I told her I was pregnant she knew she would not have her Father for much longer. She believes that a life has to make way for the new life yet to be born. (One for the spiritual amongst us??) I have never bought into that theory. You are born, you live and you then die. Inbetween that time, other people are born and other people die. There`s no grand connection, or one-in-one-out system.

Being pregnant made me feel calmer than I thought I would be about losing Granddad. I find that hard to explain, but knowing we had the baby to look forward to helped a great deal towards easing the hurt for me. As a grand-daughter I knew how much I loved him and I knew I was giving my parents the same gift in a Grand-son.

They will be as loved by their Grand-son as my Granddad was by me. For my Mum, I think knowing that, will help her come to terms with her loss.

I`m filled with many memories of him, my quiet and gentle Grandfather, such a shame his great grandson won`t ever know him.

The decision is made...

...or should that be taken out of our hands. We don`t remember the night we sat down and said, "yes, lets do it, lets reproduce!" (well lets do it may have featured, but not in the "knock me up" sense) So here we are in 2008 halfway to becoming first time parents.

In preparation we have...

1) Cancelled our holiday to New Zealand. (I`m not going if I have to limit my Cloudy Bay consumption)

2) Ensured we have only just moved into a wreck of house which needs a major overhaul.

3) In no way financially compromised ourselves by undertaking a mortgage which relies on both of us working full time until the end of time.

No time is the right time I guess and really the next big decision we have to make is whether we buy a pram or a bathroom suite?