It’s July 4th 2008, it was a Friday and I’ve been invited to a barbeque at the friends house, I am looking forward to relaxing and being around a group of fun people. It’s just before lunch and I’m finishing off a little work e-mail. I even remember the email I was replying too, it was about having people available to receive and inspect some parts going onto an aircraft I was responsible for.
It’s strange which details stay with you.
My cell goes off, the number is my parent’s home phone in England. I remember speaking to them the day before about my plans for the holiday weekend, having fun and perhaps staying overnight with friends.
It’s dad, in typical style he comes straight out with it, Granddad’s ill and I need to be there. This comes totally out of the blue, he was in his mid 80’s, had bad knees, had trouble getting around for a few years now, but no one had mentioned him being ill before now.
I never got much of an explanation over the phone other than it’s serious. I knew that, I’d not be getting the call if it were not.
Henry Darrah, 1942
I briefly spoke to dad once more that afternoon just to let him know I was that evening’s British Airways flight to London. Dad picked me up at Heathrow and it’s now Saturday afternoon in London.
In the car I got my parents version of the story. Granddad was diagnosed with leukaemia a couple of months previously, and in typical Henry Darrah fashion kept it quiet. As I’ve said before he was a powerful man, who was determined to live his life with ethics, determinations and grace, and on his terms.
My parents had known for about a week, he’d underplayed the seriousness and did not want me jumping on the next airplane to be there. He’s never liked people making a fuss of him.
I’d last seen him three months earlier when I’d gone over for what was in reality not much more than a long weekend. His house was usually the first stop after leaving the airport, typically on the way to the old peoples house.
This time we by passed his house and went straight to the Royal Surrey County Hospital. No one has told him I’m on my way; dad lets me know about this particular nugget as we are waiting for the lift to take us up to his ward.
We walk in and he’s in bed on his side as he’s got bedsores. The hospital had been giving him a series of blood transfusions over the previous couple of days and his arm has a number of big bruises. He’s obviously surprised to see me, and immediately asks what I’m doing there, I mumble something about a planned trip and dad decides he needs a cup of tea and leaves us alone.
As we always do I shake his hand, only this time I’m met by a wince of pain and the usually strong handshake is not there. That’s when I understand it’s more serious than anyone is letting on. He’s always had such a strong grip and this time there is nothing there, he’s ill, and he’s not told at least my parents how ill he is.
After a while Geraldine and my aunt show up, first thing he asks his wife was did she know I was coming. Geraldine says yes she did, gave him a look and it was left at that, at least while I was still in the room.
Geraldine and my grandfather married the year I moved to the Seattle. They had been living together for a few years before that. I saw from the start that Geraldine made my grandfather very happy, and his happiness was what I cared about. It took mum a few years to accept her, but she saw that her dad was happy and ultimately that’s what mattered.
Mum had commented a few times that one of the strangest things she had done was watch her dad get married. I think it was uncomfortable for her that he was making it so clear that he had moved on from my grandmother’s death 16 years earlier. Mum came round, like the rest of us we saw granddad was happy and that what we all, including mum, wanted.
My Grandparents 1977 or 78
That evening I visited granddad again, for an hour or so it’s just the two of us. He spent a lot of time talking about the past, telling stories, not something he does very often. My brother joined us after a while. Granddad spent almost three hours that evening sharing with Stephen and I. He reminisced about growing up in Canada, learning to drive as a 12 year old, going to Montreal, watching La Habs play at the Forum, moving to England, what mum did as a child and so on.
We talked about growing up; rides in his cars, given candy over my parent’s objections and all the wonderful things grandparents do for grandkids.
I saw him every day for the next five days. I said good-bye to granddad on my way to the airport; I was going to be back in a couple of weeks and said I’d see him then.
He passed before I could make it back to see him.
There is a lot more to this story, how mum did not want to worry me, how Geraldine threatened to call me herself if mum did not do it, how my grandfathers family came together to celebrate the man. How his ashes are in a vault next to my grandmother.
Two years on my aunt and his wife Geraldine still live in the same house, and it still does not feel right to walk into that house and not see Henry struggling to get out of his chair to greet me. I’ve only been in the living room a couple of times since he passed, it feels so strange after so many years of granddad always being in his chair when I arrived.
